


DARKSIDE: The United States of Anarchy

by Darkheart (Nightmare)



Category: Superhero - Fandom
Genre: Ancient Evil, F/F, F/M, Gang Rape, Gen, Incest, Masturbation, Metahumans, Multi, Mysticism, Other, Paranormal, Pseudo-Incest, Psionics, Therianths, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-17
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-01 20:10:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 55,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2786114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightmare/pseuds/Darkheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Give a red blooded twelve year old boy <i>Ultimate Power</i>, and <i>Utter Corruption</i> to go along with it. What would he do? This is the tale of a boy who gets everything he ever wanted, and it won't be pretty. But it is also a story of Redemption... When you are making up the rules that everyone else has to live by, where do you draw the lines? When every wish is but a thought away, what are your limits except those you yourself set? The kid in this story is going to find out...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "The Boy In The Attic."

**Author's Note:**

> 2014 A/N: This was my first erotic story, and yes, I am the original author; I have the hand written drafts to prove it. This is _Dark Stuff_ , no pun intended, I wrote it after browsing the wild and woolly regions of Usenet in the 1990s. Mostly, I was trying to see the limits of my writing squick and ended up rather surprising myself how far I could go. The story is roughly twenty years old, as I used to post the chapters on the Usenet Newsgroup alt.sex.stories, and later on sites like The Grey Archive, long before there were dedicated sites to post fanfic. I abandoned updating the story in 1999, but I finished the 19th and 20th chapters for my own benefit if no one else’s. All the characters are original, in a superhero-genre world of my own invention. I've edited for grammar and passive language and fixed some dated references.
> 
> [Disclaimer: This text is intended for adult audiences, if you are not of age to view it, _be somewhere else_. This series of stories explores the darker aspects of the human sexual experience, if that might offend you, then you were warned, and it isn't my problem.]
> 
> Anything can happen in the **Multiverse**. Even a world that is much like ours, but which somehow... isn't. A world that is a magnet for the blackness in the dreams and souls of humankind. A world known as: **The Darkside**.
> 
> The World's economic system depends on a delicate interlocking web of mutual trust and financial debt. When those bonds shattered, the governments and monetary institutions crumbled. Even the most idealistic civil servants left their jobs when their families were gripped with hunger. The Survivors of the Chaos would come to call their nation the _United States of Anarchy_
> 
> Things begin, as they did at first, with the boy in the attic...

_It had all started with the weather. The North Hemisphere suffered record precipitation during an unbelievably bad winter before everything went to Hell. The flip side of the world broiled with a fierce drought, and the markets were tense as crop after crop in the Southern Hemisphere failed. Not that the North had any better luck in the season before._

_Whether from floods, or high winds, or from rain at just the wrong time, the agricultural systems of many countries were a mess the year before the Fall. The Futures Market collapsed from so many pre-sold goods that would never be delivered. There wasn't enough Farmer's Insurance to go around, when no-one could take up the slack._

_The World Bank's failure was just the first domino in what came next. One country after another, when hard pressed for cash began to demand their debtors to pay up, and fast. The United States was a Nation with not only billions of dollars in debts, but with billions more in outstanding loans to other countries who had defaulted, or who would never pay._

_When the U.S. began unilaterally deducting the amount owed *to* them from the payments owed *by* them, the uproar didn't last long before other countries began to do the same themselves. The World market became a joke, and each Nation could only rely on the monies that it produced internally, and those were sharply cut._

_The crisis affected everyone, the wealthy and the poor, the weak and the powerful. It even affected a middle class grocer's family in Iowa. They had a good lifestyle, mostly, with only the usual arguments about money and politics. Even when the wife complained about the grocer's extended buying trips out of town, things weren't too bad. But that was about to change..._  

 

Robbie crouched in the attic, biting down on his fist. This sort of thing just didn't happen in Iowa, not in one's own home. The brigands were in the house, and if they knew he was there, they would kill him, just as they'd killed Dad. 

He was close to wetting himself or crying because he realized that he'd screwed up. When he scrambled to the attic, he'd left the rope dangling down for the attic stairs. He could hear heavy clomping footsteps in the hallway, and rough voices arguing about checking the attic. 

Robbie was a small, dark haired boy, even though he was almost 13. He looked around in fright for another place to hide. Then he saw it, the air conditioning vent! 

He'd been in there before, just a few months ago. Dad had asked him to help clean the air filters. It was a large old house, and it was hard to get at them without paying for a service call. Robbie had saved them enough money that he'd gotten to chose the kind of ice cream they bought for a month. 

He crawled over to it and checked to see if he could still put his hands between the slats. Quickly he unlatched it, and then turned to pull some boxes over to conceal the vent. He slipped inside, and set the grate back in place. 

First one latch, then the second closed. He reached to the other side and stretched his fingers. Third latch done. Light poured up into the attic from the steps. The men had found the stair pull dangling in the hallway, and pulled it down to investigate. Robbie froze, his fingers just about to stick through the slats again. 

The boxes kept him from seeing the man, and the boy thought it was probably a good thing. Sweat streaked down his face as he fought to quiet his fast breathing. He flinched as the man stomped around, kicking boxes of stored junk, and shining his flashlight into every corner.  

The invader muttered curses in a steady stream that broke into a snarl when a man down in the hall yelled for him to tell what he saw. "Just some fuckin' Christmas tree lights, Skull," he shouted, "and a lot of dust. Can I come down now?" he said petulantly. 

"Yeah, Red," the voice answered, "c'mon, the fun's starting." The light retreated and Red started down the steps. Behind his shield of boxes, Robbie felt brave enough to reach for the last latch, and turned it closed. Snap!  

"What was that? I thought I heard something," Red said. He paused with just his head in the attic, and shone the flashlight again to the corners of the dusty space of the room. 

"Aw forget it," Skull's voice said, "these old houses are always making noises. You didn't see anything, did you?" 

"Well, no," Red said. 

"Then c'mon, Red!" Red's light faded, and with a thud the attic stairs were closed again. 

Robbie heard a feminine squeal through the ducts, so he turned around again, and quietly crawled through the metal tunnels to the 'T' junction. At the junction he waited, until he heard his sister whimper on the left, and he followed the sound. He had to see what they were doing to his teenage sister, and his mother. The duct ended in a grate set near the ceiling of his parent's bedroom. It was a big room, and most of the brigands were crowded in here, along with the two women of the house. 

His mom was curled up on the side of the king sized bed crying, with her hands clutching her slap-reddened face. The men were ignoring her for now, and were tormenting her 16-year-old daughter on the bed's other side. They were playing with Sissy, tearing off her clothes and telling her all the obscene things they would do with her. 

Robbie watched in mixed horror and fascination as his pretty sister was stripped naked. Boy, he thought, she sure had big tits! The men stripping her grabbed her tits and squeezed them, mauling them painfully. Sissy cried both in pain and humiliation. 

"She's nice, Skull," one of them said, "but I wonder if Mommy is any good still?" 

"Well, go find out, Bear," the tall man said. He was bald, and rail thin. His skin was stretched tight on his craggy bare face, clearly showing the bones that lay underneath. The man who'd asked about Robbie's mother was heavy set but burly. He sported greasy black hair and a dark shaggy beard. He looked to the boy like someone out of Dad's 'Bikers & Babes' magazines. 

He reached out with a meaty had and yanked on a handful of Mom's hair, making her yelp. "Strip, you old cunt," he growled, "or I'll do that to your little girl!" 

"You will anyway, bastard," Mom said sullenly, trying to pull away from him. 

"Oh, we'll fuck her good," he said, "But we don't have to hurt her much, unless you don't do what we say. So do it now, bitch!" Robbie's mother sat up, and started to take off her clothes, still quietly crying. The boy didn't know what to watch, his sister's forced fondling or his mother stripping herself. 

One of the men put a long finger into Sissy, and pronounced her cherry, while another ditched his clothes to show his hard cock. He grabbed Sissy's jaw and forced it open by the cruel pressure of his fingers. He hissed to her that they'd cut her mother open if she bit him, so she'd better suck him good. Then he jammed his cock into her mouth. 

Mom had taken off her blouse and her red lacy bra, and the burly man stepped forward and started squeezing her slightly sagging tits. She unbuttoned her jeans and started to push them down, all while keeping her head turned away from him, but he stopped her. He freed his fat cock from his greasy pants and pushed it at her. 

"Suck it, slut!" he said, pulling her to him by her breasts. 

Robbie felt his own small dick swell at the sight of his mom and sister sucking the cocks of these horrible men. He flushed with guilt, but he couldn't turn away. He'd never seen anything like this. 

The man named Skull seemed to be their boss, "Go suck the girl's twat, Red," he said to the redheaded teenager who stood gawking at the scene. "I want her good an' wet when I go to pop her." The skinny teen made a face, but he kneeled between the girl's spread legs, loosening his pants so he could free his cock while he licked her. Robbie recognized him now. He was a bagger at Dad’s grocery store. 

The burly man clutched Mom's hair in his fists and was vigorously fucking her mouth. Suddenly he jerked and pulled her lips tight against his bush with a groan. Robbie watched a drool of white spill from her mouth when Bear pushed her back. "Now get naked," he ordered, and slapped her when she didn't move fast enough. He nodded for another guy to take her mouth next. 

Sissy was being pinned by four men. Two identical men were pressed against her sides trapping her arms while they slurped at her big tits. Red held her legs while he ate her, and the last man was kneeling over her neck while he fucked her face. 

Red and the two sucking Sissy's tits were stroking themselves off while they molested her. One of the twins yelled "Shit!" and sprayed cum in the air and on her side, while his brother was only a second or two behind him. The man on her face bellowed a laugh as he came and moved off of her, and the next man eagerly climbed onto his place for his turn at raping the girl's mouth. 

On the other side of the bed, Robbie watched his nude mother thrown down, and the man covered her with his very hairy body. He still wore his boots and a leather vest that said, "Wolf", but nothing else. His style of fucking included mauling her tits and biting at her face while he humped on her, thrusting inside her over and over. 

Robbie couldn't stand it anymore. He reached inside his pants and grabbed his penis, squeezing and stroking it while trying to be as quiet as possible. 

Man after dirty man raped his mother and sprayed down Sissy's throat, before Skull seemed ready to join the game himself. Red had jerked off onto the girl's legs while he sucked her, but was still ready for more. Skull pulled him away from Sissy, and then pushed him at Robbie's mother. "You can fuck her," he said, as Red blubbered his thanks. 

The kid jumped on Mom and thrashed around looking for her hole while the men laughed at him. Finally, Red's cock found her cunt and he started frantically fucking her to the shouted encouragement of his fellows. 

Robbie muffled a gasp in the duct, as a hot drop of liquid escaped his small cockhead. 

The men held down Sissy, while Skull stood in between her legs, and took off his clothes. He had a very large cock if the others in the room were anything to judge by. He looked down at Sissy and stroked it to hardness. She looked terrified, but he merely smiled at her. 

He got up on the bed and laid his prick's full length on her belly while she tearfully shook her head. Skull slapped her sharply, and as she gasped in shock, he leaned back and brutally thrust inside her. Her next breath was a piercing scream of pain. 

"There!" he said. "I popped ya good, little virgin. Now we'll all be fucking you, with me being first. He pushed himself in even deeper, and with the third stroke he was all the way in. She whined with every push of his cock, and he seemed willing to go on fucking her forever. He was doing her slowly, keeping up a nice even stroke. 

Both of Robbie's hands were playing with himself now. His vantage from the ceiling let him see every perverted thing they were doing. He could see the red stain on the bed between Sissy's legs, and when Red finished, how Wolf moved over to fuck his mom. 

Mom was grunting with every hard stroke, and the bearded man kept riding her until she cried out in mixed shame and pleasure. "Yeah bitch," he said. "You're cumming, you dirty slut! Hear that, girly? Yo' mama likes being raped." 

"Good job, Bear," Skull panted. "I mean to make this cunt the one to cum next!" 

"No!" wailed Sissy, but she was also starting to pant from the machine-like thrusting of the monster dick inside her. 

Bear finished, after making Mom cum again. Another of the brigands started fucking her, but she wasn't fighting much anymore. Her hands clawed at the brute on top of her as he rammed his way to shuddering orgasm inside her sopping cunt. 

Bear looked admiringly at the boss, and joked to the others. "No one's got control like Skull does, he could go on for hours. Taught me everything I know. Soon they'll both be our fuck toys, 'til we decides to move on." 

Robbie's eyes were locked on his sister's flushed face. As he stroked his dick in time with Skull's thrusts, he could track her emotions. Horror, anger, shame, those were easy to see. But there was another expression he could feel on his own face. A kind of... reaching expression as her body began to build to some kind of release that neither she nor Robbie had ever known.

 He flicked his eyes over to his mother as she finally broke her silence. "Oh, God," Mom cried, beyond shame. "Harder, faster! Oh, fuck me now!" Robbie had never seen that look on her face, or ever heard her say things like that. It made his cock pulse harder. 

He looked back at his sister as Skull started talking to her. "Sounds like," he grunted, "your mom's getting into the spirit of it. Why don't you," another grunt, "just relax and join the fun." 

"No!" Sissy shouted, and then she chanted at every thrust. "No. No. No. No! NO!" Her body started twitching in time to the merciless thrusts. "Nooooooooooooo!" she screamed as her body spasmed hard around her rapist. She looked dazed at the sensations. 

"Mother fucker, she's tight!" Skull yelled, and drove through the girl's first vaginal orgasm. He leaned down and kissed her mouth. Sissy kissed him back, arms coming up around his neck. Then her eyes widened in realization. "No!" she said again and tried to push him from her, making him laugh at her feeble attempt. 

He began to speed up, and her white-knuckled hands clenched on his arms. Robbie's hands sped up as well. In his frenzied mind it was him on top of his sister. She was surrendering to him... He couldn't believe the feelings his dick was giving him. 

Instead of 'No', his sister was saying 'Oh' every time Skull pushed into her. He was doing her fast now, and she was getting louder. Several times she came, screaming in shame/rage/ecstasy before Skull growled, and yelled, "Take it!" as he sprayed his sperm inside her. 

In the air duct in the ceiling, Robbie bit his lips for silence as his prick shot a trickle of white against the metal wall next to him. It was the first time he'd ever come. 

Skull slipped out of her, but not before licking and kissing her engorged nipples as she lay there quivering. "Fuck her, Bear," he said. "Then all the rest of you, too. I wanna get a taste of Mama." 

He rolled over to the older woman. "Can I fuck your cunt, Mommy?" he begged playfully in a high voice. "All the other boys get to, so can I pleeeeeeeeease?" He laughed, and pulled her upright, so she could lick off her daughter's blood and juices from his cock, and get him hard again before he started plowing her. 

He kept taunting her, calling her mommy and talking dirty to her in a boy's voice. He kneeled between her legs and made her stuff his big prick insider her. "Ooo, Mommy! Your cunny's so wet," he teased. "I bet you want me to fuck you bad, don't you?" 

"Yes," she gasped in something that might have been lust, and arched her back to take him. 

"Then I wanna see you french your daughter," he snapped coldly, pushing her head towards Sissy. "Lick her tongue, 'Mommy'. Kiss her dirty." The two women began to wrestle tongues while the thugs fucked them. 

Robbie's cock twitched again, and he pinched it softly. He wanted to feel that sensation again. But when his eyes wandered around the room below him, he saw a pile of clothes lying on thefloor, and near it, the vicious gun he'd seen earlier today. 

He remembered his daddy standing on the front porch with his loaded shotgun. Daddy told the strangers to go away, they had no food to spare. He saw again the flash, as one of the brigands leaned from around the corner of the house, and shot him from behind with the big pistol.

He knew he had to get out of there. Sooner or later he'd make a sound and one of their guns would kill him, too. They were all through the house, so he didn't go back to the attic. At the ‘T’ junction of vents, he turned the other way, crawling across the length of the house. 

Near the back porch was the main outside vent of the air system. He could look out of it and see his backyard. It looked so normal he almost started to cry. Tears did start falling when Robbie saw his dog in a pool of blood, near the back gate, but the boy made no sound. 

He unsnapped the lower latches and waited until the light began to fade. Before dark, he slipped out of the vent, and carefully moved to the big shade tree on the south side of the house. The tree was almost 5 foot away from the edge of the roof, and none of the larger branches hung over. 

He had only one chance, and it was do or die. He had to risk the jump before nightfall or he wouldn't be able to see well enough to judge the gap. He screwed up his courage and made a desperate leap over the yawning space to the tree. He grasped the bole of the tree with barely a rustle of leaves and clung to it, waiting for night. 

Robbie tried to ignore the cries of his family, and the sounds of tears, spanking, and of sex. He hated himself for halfway enjoying what he'd seen, and for wanting to see it again. He shook in fear and shock in the tree for a long time after dark. The house was mostly quiet before he could make himself slip down of the tree. 

He snuck out of his yard, and ran for the woods. He headed for Indian Cavern. All the kids of the town were forbidden to explore in the cave, and it was posted with all kinds of warnings. 

Robbie hoped that no one would look for him there. He hoped that he'd be safe…

To be Continued...

[Version: Revision E - 12/2014]


	2. "Indian Cavern."

Robbie had been spotted. He'd left the caves to go into town yesterday to scrounge some food, and had come back at a run. He heard men yelling after him, telling him to stop, but by cutting through the shortcuts all the town kids knew, he got to the caves before them.

He hugged the back wall of the area he'd explored, and listened to echoes of voices at the mouth of the cave. Robbie prayed they wouldn't come in, but his stomach sank when he saw the flashlights beginning to shine inside the first chamber of the cave. He heard them tearing the boards away from the entrance. They couldn't squeeze through the place where the planks gapped like he could.

"You'd better come out here, kid," a gruff voice shouted to him. Robbie identified it as Bear's voice. "If we have to come in and get you, we'll kill ya!"

Robbie didn't answer, but instead he started feeling his way back as quick as he could to the inky shadows where he hadn't explored yet. He didn't dare use the electric lantern he'd found in the cave, which was tied to his belt. He would just have to feel for a way to escape.

A shiver ran through him. He thought of the many stories told about the caves. The ghost stories, and tales of how the first white explorers had found an Indian's skeleton, stretched out in the act of trying to leave the caves. The cavern was the favorite subject of local campfire creep stories. There were whole centuries of speculation about what exactly 'did in' the dead Indian that were passed down from one generation to the next.

His heart pounded in his chest as the light level behind him got brighter. They were inside the caves now. His hands found a low, small tunnel that seemed to go back some way. As he hesitated, he heard footsteps on the loose rocks in the middle of the outer chamber. Robbie turned and quickly crawled into the tube.

Lights flashed past the entrance of his tunnel as he scrambled to get even deeper. "Hear that?" Bear said. "Little bugger's nearby. Find him!" The lights kept playing around, until one shot in Robbie's tube, outlining him against the rocky walls.

“There he is," Red said. "It's a real small hole, though. Can't I just shoot him and we can leave? They say things about this place that I don't like."

Bear rumbled, then said, "Naw, go in there and drag him out. You're small enough to go after him."

The boy kept pushing into the tube, listening to the teen curse several body lengths behind him. The ground gave slightly under his small hand, and it stayed sunken in. Robbie froze for a minute, until he felt Red reach to touch the heel of his sneaker with his outstretched fingertips. Robbie moaned.

"Damn!" Red said, "Can't quite grab him!"

Robbie lurched forward, desperately trying to scramble beyond the soft spot, and banged his head on the rocks that closed off the tube. He was left with his whole weight on the weak floor, and unable to retreat.

"No!" he cried as the floor crumbled from under him. He fell for what seemed like forever, flailing as he tried to grab something, anything to save him. Robbie landed with the sound of a wet stick breaking and a searing stab of agony in his leg.

"Mother puss-bucket!" Red shouted, praying, for he was just short of the dark hole that had swallowed up the boy. He inched closer, peering down along his flashlight beam. It spotlighted the still form of the boy at the bottom, one leg bent oddly at mid-shin.

"He's a goner, Bear," he called back. "He fell down real deep and he's all busted up. Go ahead and pull me back."

"You sure he can't get out?" Bear said to him.

"Just as sure that I can't go get him," Red answered. "Trust me, he'll be dead real soon, if he ain't already."

-=-

Robbie was inclined to believe him. Things looked bad. He'd played dead while Red checked on him, and passed out for a while after the lights and voices faded. He pulled the lamp from his belt and pumped the handle for as long as he could. When he turned it on, he could see that he was in a big cave, so big the ceiling was dim to his faint light. The hole he fell through was just a shadow to his eyes.

There was smaller chamber attached to this one, just a niche in comparison, and he could hear water trickling in there. It took a long time before he was thirsty enough to try, and even longer for him to finally drag himself to smaller space.

He wet his mouth with the mineral laden trickle. The lamp had stopped working, or he wasn't pumping it enough for it to activate, he couldn't tell. He wasn't even sure he cared anymore. At least it was warm here. There was a soft heat pouring from the back of the smaller cavern. He was starting to feel sleepy...

-=-

< _Boy,_ > said a distant voice. < _Awaken._ >

"Leave me alone," Robbie said. "I just want to sleep."

< _Will you sleep your last, Boy?_ > the soft voice persisted. < _I can support you for a time. Open your eyes, and then listen to me._ >

The boy looked around. In the back of the niche, about twelve long feet away, was a cluster of crystals bigger than he was. It glowed with a soft amber light. Dimly within it, he could see a black Rod, like a long softball bat with big nobs along the heavy end*. The weapon was over four feet long, and it radiated a feeling of power and menace.

< _Take me up, Boy, > the voice whispered to him. <You can just reach in and draw me forth. Untold power and majesty will be yours if you do._>

"I'm not King Arthur," Robbie giggled, a little deliriously. "I can't pull a Rod from the stones."

< _And I'm not 'Excalibur', but nonetheless, I can make you a king._ >

"I wouldn't have a kingdom. This is America; no kings."

< _No Government anymore, either, but with me you can make a kingdom, and have whatever else that you want. What dark desires lie in your heart, Boy? Tell them to me, and if you've the strength, I can make them come true._ >

Robbie thought of himself, a boy short for his young age, as a king, trying to hold up the dark Rod, and shook his head, rejecting the ridiculous image. "It won't work," he said. "I'm too little."

< _Ah, but what if you were grown? > the voice asked._

In the boy's head another image formed, of himself, but older. In his mid twenties, tall, muscular, and chiseled; his build was good enough to make a superhero jealous. He had a shock of thick black hair and piercing black eyes. He carried the Rod effortlessly, and under his blue jeans, his crotch had a bulge to match his heroic proportions.

< _I can make this happen, and give you that body if you just take me in your hand._ >

As Robbie reached out in a haze his leg shifted, and a stab of ripping pain stopped him. "Ow!" he cried out. "If you're so powerful why don't you heal me first? Then I'll pick you up."

< _It doesn't work that way. You have to touch me before I can work any changes on you. You have to Choose me._ >

"But it's too hard to move," Robbie complained. "Can't you do something to help?"

< _If you don't get over here, you will die. Soon. If worldly wealth and power or even physical prowess is not enough to induce you to move, what will? Not even the threat of your imminent death seems sufficient. What will make you fight your pain and grasp your destiny?_ >

"Wait a minute," the boy said. "Why are you in there? Why aren't you giving someone else the power if you're so great?"

< _I can only bestow my power on the being that touches me with the intent to take it. Those were the rules Raven and Coyote made when they banished me here long ago. They didn't like the influence I was having on their people. You are the first human since those times to make it this far. You aren't much, but you are all I have to work with._ >

"Raven and who?" Robbie said. "And gee, thanks so much."

< _What makes your passions great? What makes you angry?_ >

"The brigands do," Robbie said. "They killed my dog. They shot my dad, and they ... hurt my mom and sister. I wish I could just... break them in half!"

< _You can, you know. That wish can come true. Let me show you. Only your imagination can limit the power I represent._ >

In his mind the boy saw his man-self confronting the brigands, with the Rod in hand. Bullets bounced off him, and knives were useless. The big man Bear charged the image, and his older self's free hand plunged into the thug's chest and with a spray of blood, ripped the still beating heart out and crushed it.

Red yelled defiantly at him, so the Dark man pulled back the Rod like a ball bat and swung. The teen's head went flying off, trailing gore. Next was Skull's turn. Robbie's dream self pointed a finger at him and the gaunt man burst into flames, reducing him to a standing skeleton before crumbling into a pile of ash.

The hairy man Wolf turned into his namesake, and fled. The rest of the brigands either ran away, or kneeled in obeisance to their new lord. The black crowned man turned, and looked over to his house. Mom and Sissy were safe on the porch, waving at him.

< _That would be fun, wouldn't it? For you to master your enemies, and become the one that others fear? Is that reason enough for you to come? To be a warrior, one must often suffer first. Come to me, come and be strong._ >

"Maybe," Robbie muttered. "I'll try." He crawled some more, dragging his leg as carefully as possible. The slope of the floor changed to a steeper angle, and the bones in his broken leg rubbed at the break. Robbie turned white and gasped. He panted, lacking the energy to scream.

"I can't go on," he said. "This has to be good enough."

< _It isn't. You have to reach in and touch me with your hand. What else is there that you desire? What was that dark want that crossed your mind during the last vision? Something about your family?_ >

"No! Get out of my head!" Robbie moaned. "You can't look there." He grabbed his head as if he could use his hands to shut out the insistent voice.

< _A trace of guilt and conscious at last, Boy? But not a very strong one, I see. Let's look at that again, and if you love your life, don't fight me._ >

Once again his strong-self stood triumphant over his enemies in the arena of Robbie's mind, scarcely marred by their blood. No longer was he the victim of bullies like the guy in the strongman ads in comic books. Now it was **_he_** who inspired others to run away, to fawn on him for favor. It was a great feeling, but it wasn't enough...

Robbie snapped his eyes open. He knew what it wanted. Knew what the last stain was on his soul, the one that finally would make him surrender. For as long as he could, the boy fought the vision's insistent call, but he couldn't fight his own urges as well. With a sigh, he gave in and let his eyes close once more.

...Victorious, the Dark man turned again and looked toward his house. Sissy and Mom stood naked on the porch, smiling and waving to their rescuer. In the vision his pants swelled with a hard-on that would make men cry and women swoon. It was as super-human as the rest of him, and he wanted to use it on them. He could pretend that the girl wasn't his sister, or the woman his mother. They wouldn't know, the Dark man didn't look anything like little Robbie Black.

He walked to the house, leaving the brigands behind him. But this time, they would not be the ones to despoil his home; it would be him. He remembered all the little petty annoyances of family life. His sister "borrowing" his radio without permission and lying about it. His mom grounding him for breaking a window, when it was Kenny that did it, he could get even with them now. He could do to them what the bad men had done, what they had seemed to enjoy so much...

< _Oh, such a dark desire. That was quite a thing to see, wasn't it? So strange, and so very exciting. Do you remember how you felt when you came with your little cock? I can promise you that the pleasure will be magnified with the size of your dick. If you want to fuck like a man, little boy, get over here, and touch me_. >

Robbie gritted his teeth, and crawled over to the crystals. It was three foot away, but he moaned and struggled, and got that distance down to one foot. He reached out, and touched the crystals. They tingled to his fingers, and with an extra pressure, like pushing into clear jello, his hand passed through them. He reached for the still black Rod, and missed! Bare inches separated him from his goal, but it was still too far.

It was just too much for the boy, and Robbie collapsed from his strained position and started crying. He cried until he couldn't anymore, and then lay there, feeling his tear tracks dry on his face. The smell of the dust he lay in tickled his nose, but he was too tired to care. It was very quiet in the cave, except the erratic drip of water, from what seemed like miles behind him.

< _Boy, it had better be soon. Try again! Try harder!_ > The voice was louder, it snapped at him, galvanizing him with its tone alone.

He grabbed a chunk of crystal, and pulled hard, screaming as he jostled his leg. His chest pressed against the cluster of crystals. Now, all he had to do was reach out. But after all his pain and effort, something he couldn't fathom made him hesitate.

< _Take me up, Boy,_ > it said softly. < _And all that I promised will be yours. Boss of your town, Master of your state, King of America, Emperor of the World! You can fuck anyone you want, even your mother and your sister; I won't care. You just have to choose._ >

"Forgive me," Robbie whispered to that unknown impulse, and he reached out and grasped the Rod.

Fire arced through him, and he died, or so it seemed to him. The crystals turned to molten glass, and crawled up his arm like a living thing, burning his flesh. The Rod fought the Wards, and tried to heal his leg at the same time. It raised itself up, his hand still firmly grasping it, and smashed down on the crystals, extinguishing the fire.

Abruptly his arm and leg felt better. Then a stinging, enveloping feeling covered his whole body, forcing his eyes shut as the world blurred. His heart was pounding in his chest, but it was much stronger than he ever remembered it.

He stood up easily, nude and magnificent in the suddenly smaller chamber that was now dimly lit by the indigo glow of the Rod. Raising his handsome head, he could see the small hole in the ceiling that he'd fallen through to get in here.

"I want to see myself," he said, and started at the deep, rich tone of his voice. A field shot from the Rod, and it mirrorized. He saw in the reflective surface the man-self from the visions. His hand roamed over the body, and confirmed to him what he saw. Especially his cock! He let go of the Rod and it floated before him.

A far cry from the little dick he'd just had, this massive piece of meat looked bigger flaccid than Skull’s did erect. He rubbed his hands over it, stroking it, pulling on it.

"Show me my memories," he commanded, "what I saw through the vent in Mom's room."

One last time he heard the voice, < _The Rod is a part of you now, like your eyes or your hands. You don't need to speak to it, anymore than you need to tell your hand to bring a spoonful of food to your mouth. Just imagine what you want to do, and *you* can do it._ >

The surface rippled, and he could see once again his sister and mother, thrown on the big bed and ravished by human trash. The scene was just as riveting to him as it was before, and it had the same effect on him. His new male appendage swelled, turning red and then purplish with the engorgement. It stood rigidly of its own accord, sticking straight out from his hard body, bobbing gently to his pounding heartbeat.

He cupped his scrotum, feeling the heavy balls move in them, brushing over the light coating of short dark hairs on them. He ran his fingers through the heavier growth above his cock, and then began to pay homage to the star of this show.

It took a hand as big as the one he had now to wrap around the shaft. The size didn't quite compare to the ebon artifact in front of him, and the purple head was shy of being as big as his closed fist. Still, he was very pleased with his new tool.

He gripped it below the head, slowly pulling back the loose skin, to reveal the head fully. With his other hand, he rubbed over the tip, spreading the thin lubricating fluid around liberally. He pushed his hand forward just as slowly, and made a small noise of pleasure at the minor stimulation that the first stroke provided.

With his eyes locked on the sordid scene, he stroked himself leisurely. When his mother surrendered to the over-stimulation, he sped up his pumping. Then he watched once more as Skull fucked his sister, timing him strokes to the gaunt man's thrusts again.

His sister succumbed to the forced orgasm, and he went faster still. Finally as Skull came, the Dark man also shouted, "Take it!" spraying the image with gobs of white. It made the surface ripple, like raindrops onto pools of water, dissolving the pictures into chaos, which resolved into his reflection once more.

"I'm not Robbie anymore," he said, a little breathless. "My name is Robert, Robert Black. And the whole world is going to pay for fucking up my life!"

It was time to go; he took hold of the Rod again. He had to extract an installment on the enormous debt the universe owed him, and which he now had the means to collect.

 

To be Continued...

* If Robbie had known anything about Oriental weapons, he would have said it was similar to a Tetsubo.

[Version : Revision C - 12/2014]


	3. "Robert's Revenge."

Deep in the bowels of the Indian Cavern, Robert Black looked up, taking the ebony Rod in hand, and disappeared in a swirl of darkness. He re-appeared in his front yard, surprising three members of the gang who were sitting on the wide porch. They jumped up, one of them drawing a gun and shooting at the naked intruder.

The bullets bounced off Robert's bare chest, and he stopped to smile briefly at the success of his invulnerability trick. With a wave of his hand, he made them fall unconscious. He stepped up on the porch and picked up the gun, crushing it in his hand.

Two more men came out the front door to check on the source of the gunfire, and they fell down as well. They didn't even have a chance to gawk at the nude Adonis standing in front of the door. Robert waved the Rod over them, to ensure they would not awaken until he decided.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He was standing right where his father had, the day he'd died. He whirled like a cat, and fired a bolt of midnight energy at the brigand named Bear, who was leaning around the corner with his big pistol just as he had last time. A hole appeared in the heavy man's chest that Robbie could have thrown a softball through. With a hoarse gurgle, Bear dropped.

Glass shattered as gun muzzles were thrust through the front windows on either side of the door, firing bullets continuously at Robert. Most of them hit a barrier shield around the Dark man, and fell softly to the porch. The remainder passed by him into the yard.

He crossed his arms and waited out the first hail of bullets, then opened the front door, and stepped inside. The twin men on either side of the door turned and fired at him. The projectiles passed through him, and their gunfire riddled each other instead. Both of them slid down in pools of blood.

Another thug sitting on the living room couch caught his eye. He seemed torn between fleeing the room, and reaching for the gun just out of his reach. With a thought from Robert, the brigand lapsed into the quiet coma the men on the porch enjoyed.

Three of the unwashed men stepped into the living room from the broad main hall. They carried the heaviest weapons that the gang had. One of them had a street sweeper; a vicious black little gun that auto-fired dozens of shotgun shells from a fat round clip, like one from an old time Tommy-Gun. There was a fully converted AK-47, and Mr. Black's pump action shotgun.

The roar of their gunfire echoes loudly in the old house, and Robert scowled. With a brusque gesture, he made the bullets flying at him turn in midair without losing any of their velocity, and slammed back into the would-be assassins. They fell dead, and Robert crumpled all the guns in the room into abstract paperweights.

He reached out with his mind, and located the others. He spotted three of them running in the backyard, heading for the gate. They were nearly at the spot where his dog Sammy was killed. They fell while running, slipping into a coma that not even the act of skidding to a halt on their faces could disturb.

Robert walked past the bloody corpses at the entrance of the hall, and went to his mother's bedroom. Skull stood there, holding a gun to Sissy's head, with his other fist wrapped in her lank auburn hair. "Get out of here, you scuz," the gang leader hissed, "or I'll blow her brains out!" Sissy was sobbing, and her mother was lying unconscious on the floor.

"No you won't," Robert said quietly. The pistol flew out of the leader's hands and into his own. He crushed it easily. Skull felt himself let go of the girl's hair without his volition, and step in front of the naked man. He was powerless to fight the compulsion that gripped him.

"Why did you come here?" Robert asked.

"It was Red," Skull said woodenly. "He said there would be food and females here. We just hadda kill the man and the kid. It sounded like a good deal to me, so we came here, and it was just like he said, until you came.

A spark of realization lit the black eyes of the big man, but he focused back on the victim before him. Skull had changed his life, and Robert meant to remember him for it. He laid the Rod along one side of the lean man's chin, and his hand along the other: Dark fire roared over the brigand's body, consuming it totally. Totally, except for the now fleshless skull that Robert now held. It was an interesting souvenir, but for now he dropped it to the floor.

Sissy was sitting beside her mom's still form, trying to bring her around. She hadn't really watched what the Dark man had done to her tormentor, but she looked up at him in fear. Robert gazed at her naked body for a moment, his cock hardening in anticipation. Her eyes widened at the huge penis, but then flicked to the side, at a bit of movement behind him.

The hairy man named Wolf had crouched in the closet, watching his boss's incineration. Now he crept up with a big hunting knife, and jabbed it deep in the side of the enemy. Robert gasped at the brief surge of pain, but then frowned as he willed his body to expel the blade and to heal itself.

Wolf snarled as he fought to jam the knife in deeper, but Robert turned, clenching his free hand over the brigand's sinewy wrist. He made Wolf let go, as the blade pushed out and clattered to the floor. He hesitated, on the verge of killing his attacker, but then he relented and knocked him out, instead. Wolf might be useful to him later.

Before he could play, there was one last worm to sniff out. Robert snagged Wolf by the scruff of his biker vest, and dragged him out of the room and left him there. Then he went to the back hall and pulled down the attic stairs. "Red," his deep voice called. "Come out!  Don't make me come in and get you, Rodney."

The teen was too craven to answer. Robert floated up to the attic, remembering so well just days ago, when their positions had been reversed. He found the scared teenager, huddled in the corner in a puddle of his own urine. Robert took his arm and pulled the incoherent and flailing kid to the hall below.

"Why'd you do it, Rodney?" Robert asked. "You live in this town. Why'd you wind up with this scum?" He slapped Red, to silence his blubbering.

Tears started flowing down Red's face, but he started talking, "They were so strong and cool! They said I could be too. I just had ta point 'em at good targets, that's all. And they said I could join in with them.

"Why'd you pick the Blacks?" Robert insisted, needing to know, but somehow already knowing. "What did they ever do to you?"

"Mr. Black was the manager of Halden's Grocery, where I used to work," Red said. "His little brat saw me snitching stuff from the store, and tattled to his daddy. I really needed that job; the bastard didn't have to fire me like that. I hated the little runt, too. I'm glad we chased him into the cave to die."

White-hot rage exploded through Robert. All this pain had been for that! Without thinking he reached down and rended the boy apart with his bare hands, silencing his piercing screams. Soon he was quiet. As quiet as his dog Sammy was, or Robert's dad.

Robert was splattered with gore. With a sweeping gesture, he was clean, and the bodies were buried. The house was repaired with the skull as a new decoration for the mantelpiece. Lastly the ten men in a coma were laid out on the side porch, the house was quiet once more.

He went back to the bedroom. His mom was awake, and she was clutching Sissy's hands as they waited in dread for what would happen now. Their hair hung limply, and they looked unkempt and sloppy from constant use. "Let me clean you," Robert said. With a wave of his hand, they were washed, but he left them nude.

"Who are you?" his mom asked. "What do you want from us?"

"My name is Robert, he said. He let his desire show, and it hit them like a physical wave. "And what I want is a little... gratitude from you." He put the Rod down on the dresser, and stood before them. They watched his massive cock come to twitching attention at their gaze.

Mom was trying to fight the mild compulsion, but Sissy seemed fascinated with the pulsing cock-meat before her. Both women had been constantly subjected to sexual stimulation since their home was invaded. Robert wasn't quite coercing them with his newfound powers, but he wanted to seduce him, and his desire was influencing them.

"What are you waiting for?" Mom said, bitterly. "Why don't you just rape us, too?"

"Because I don't have to," the Dark man said. "You know that I could, I took out the whole gang with little effort." He reached out and caressed the auburn hair of his sister. He let his hand drift down to the side of her face, to the hollow of her neck, and then gave a good squeeze of her full young breasts. She was startled at his casual boldness.

Sissy shot a guilty glance at her mother, but then leaned into his warm hand. The strange man wasn't hurting or degrading her, and there was something fascinating about him that she couldn't define. She looked at his face. He was handsome in a familiar way. Sort of like her father crossed with Tom Cruise, but built to Arnold's scale. He didn't look angry or cruel like the brigands, but she could feel the hot desire that showed in his dark eyes. Her eyes dropped to his ready cock. There was a glistening drop of pre-cum at the tip, and she swallowed hard, unsure if she should resist the desire to taste it. She leaned forward, wetting her lips.

"Susan!" her mother said, grabbing her arm, but the girl didn't care. She laid a soft kiss on his cockhead, touching her tongue to it. His hand came down to gently stroke her face. Susan trembled, his gentleness affecting her in unexpected ways. It was so arousing in comparison to the brutal, painful treatment given her by the invaders. She went to sucking on his cock with a will, reveling in the feelings it gave her, and somehow knowing in her bones that this man would never harm her.

Maggie Black looked in amazement at her daughter's actions. He wasn't forcing her at all, and her daughter was blowing him with amateur gusto. Her eyes met his, and they were warm and hungry. Her groin began to wet at the look, and she could begin to understand the way her daughter was acting, and her evident arousal.

"Come on, Mo-... Maggie," he said softly, reaching with his other hand to stroke the older woman's cheek. Tears gleamed in her eyes as the sudden realization came to her that the Dark man would never allow them to be harmed. With him, they would be safe in an uncertain and dangerous world.

He hugged her to his side, and she cried softly against him. A smile of irony crossed his face, but he held her tight, and patted her hair. "It's alright," he said, "you'll be safe now, with me."

Susan moaned, squirming. The feelings she got sucking this big cock were making her feel so hot. The smell of her desire reached the other two.

Maggie knew that if she wanted, he would let her pull away, but she wasn't sure she wanted to. This man had punished her husband's killers. She'd seen them kill Dennis, and they'd bragged they'd driven her son Robbie to his death.

A few weeks ago she wouldn't have done it. But a few weeks ago, the Dollar appeared strong, and law enforcement officers still tried to fulfill their duty to 'serve and protect'. She'd heard that the country had slipped into chaos, but she hadn't really believed it, until faced with the proof. If they wanted to be safe, they needed a strong protector, and no one seemed stronger than this man Robert.

She needed a last assurance. "Will you ever leave us alone?" she asked.

"Not as long as I live," he said. "I swear it. The two of you are mine, forever." Susan hummed her approval on his cock.

That raised more questions in Maggie's mind than it answered. "But, why?" she said, puzzled.

"Because I don't want to share you," he said with a lecherous grin. "You'll have my children from now on."

"Children? Oh, god," said Maggie, "Susan. What if she's already...?" Her eyes reflected a mixture of disgust and worry.

Robert dropped his hands, laying his palms on their bellies. He could sense the sperm of the brigands inside them, and destroyed it all. He sought to know if they were pregnant, and found his answer. "Neither of you are pregnant... yet," he said.

He thought of something else. He knew what incest was, and had heard jokes about stupid or deformed children. He closed his eyes and wanted to know what problems they would have bearing his kids. He could see none. In fact, he was scarcely related to them anymore. His genetics were substantially altered, making some of the various gifts he now had, things he could pass on to his offspring.

He felt it was time to give Susan what she'd been working for so hard. He put both hands on her head, and pumped her face with care. He wanted him to be able to handle his load, and to her amazement, she could. It seemed sweet and heavy, like a sexual drug, so unlike the bitter seed of the scum who'd been raping her.

Robert smiled at the older woman, waggling his eyebrows at her, in friendly seduction. "It's your turn, Maggie. Get on the bed."

She lay down, quivering. She was surrendering her body freely to a stranger, and it was exciting. He kneeled between her spread thighs, bending down to suck in one of her nipples. He brought up a hand to gently maul her other breast, then began twisting the nipple.

Susan crept behind him, and licked at his dark, hanging nuts. She gave them little kitten licks all over, and even sucked the balls into her mouth gently. Robert satisfied his desire to suck on his mother's tits, bringing up both hands to squeeze them, and leaning on her a little more, while Susan's attentions quickly made him stone hard again, and pulsing with eagerness.

It turned him on that only he knew that he was brother and son to these women, or at part of him was. On top of the acts he was performing for the first time, breaking the taboo of incest gave him an extra thrill. Maggie shifted under him; his hard cock was digging painfully in her belly.

"Do it now," she pleaded, pulling his head from sucking her nipple so she would see his face, and look into his dark eyes.

"What do you say?" he asked with a playful smile.

"Please, fuck me!" she said. "I want a real man's cock, I'm so tired of those animals in me."

"It will be my pleasure, and yours, too," he said. He slipped back a little and pushed his rigid meat to an angle where he touched his tip to the swollen labia of the woman who had born him. With a hard thrust, he filled her, sliding deep inside her sopping cunt. He leaned down again, and continued to nibble on his mother's nipples as he gave her his cock in easy, powerful strokes.

Maggie moaned as he pushed himself inside her. He was so very big, and so strong, too. Strong enough to continue stimulating her tits while keeping up a steady pumping movement of his big cock in her vagina. Her daughter crawled up besides them, and kissed her passionately, unable to resist the need to be involved.

Robert willed that Maggie's fertility cycle would change, so that this fucking would knock her up. The mere thought that his seed would make a child grow inside his mother's womb made his skin shiver in white-hot desire. He started fucking her harder.

The last time, he had just watched as they were conquered, and now it was he that was making them surrender. His mother was welcoming him into her cunt. Her hands and legs clutched at him, trying to get bring him deeper and closer. Her body was racked by strong orgasms, and she moaned his name.

As her body began to comply with his will, his senses told him of a fertility problem with his mother. It was the reason why she'd tried and failed to have more kids after him, but it was something that he could fix easily enough. He wanted no difficulties with this pregnancy, so he even mitigated some of the effects of her aging.

"You are going to have my baby from this," he told her.

"I... I can't. Not anymore. Not after Robbie," she sobbed, her emotions bared to him. "Something was... torn inside."

"I healed you, Maggie," he said. "You will have more babies now. *My* babies! I can see how you have so longed for more, and now you will have them."

"Oh lord, if only that could be true," she said through hot tears.

"Look at me!" he ordered, and he locked eyes with her. "You know I'm telling you the truth."

If he'd thought his mother was a good fuck before, now she became a wild woman. She bit and clawed at him, urging in on with language that would make sailors uncomfortable. She goaded Robert to a more vigorous level, astonishing her daughter in the process. The big man couldn't take much more of his mother in this state. That she was so eager for his baby nearly drove him to the point of madness. He gripped her arms tight and plowed her with great intensity. He made himself last until he thought she could take it no more, then sped up to make her come once more.

While Maggie was in the throes of her orgasm, he cut loose with his. Feeling him spasm inside her, knowing what would result of it was too much for her. She screamed in fulfillment, and slumped suddenly under him. He withdrew from her, and scanned her with his powers. Maggie was fine. She was just overcome with her passion.

Susan looked with fear and wonder at the dark energy enveloping his hand as he ran it over her mother. It felt... dangerous. Those black eyes turned to her, and she shivered; half in fear, half in a strange desire.

"She's fine," he said gently. "It was all a little much for her." His expression turned passionate, "It's your turn now, isn't it little one?"

"Yes, sir," she said in a schoolgirl's voice. She desperately wanted to have the fucking her mother had just gotten. She leaned back on the bed, and held out her arms for him. He came and pulled her close to him, wrapping his arms around her tightly. She was falling in love with him, and felt safe with him.

While Robert was kissing her on her face, her mouth, her neck and firm breasts, part of him was thinking that only he had such wonderful gifts. It was a shame he was the only one with them. He remembered those sly words, 'Only your imagination limits me', and grinned suddenly. He could give others powers, and he was going to do it.

He started sucking Sissy's nipples, enjoying her hands gripping his hair. He sent his power out across the world, seeking what potential lay in the human race for extra-ordinary gifts. To his surprise, there was a lot. Whole family clans had some strong active talents that he didn't immediately understand. They used a power that he'd never heard of, but he could exponentially increase the amount of it, and their use of it. He'd find out what that was all about some other time.

A small percentage of people had minor, but active psychic gifts, like the girl who shuddered in his arms. He reached down to play with her clit as he looked deeper. Susan seemed to a kind of empath, which seemed to go a long way to explain her reactions to his lusts. Many people had small latencies for psionics, and he could open the floodgates that would enable more people to utilize their mind's full potential. She squirmed at the stimulation of her clit, panting with need, and began chewing on his ears.

What surprised him the most was that more than 60 percent of the planet's population had a potential for what some would call superpowers, or Lamarkian mutations, but for the most of them were deeply latent. He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. By the time he rocked back and began entering his sister's young cunt, he was ready to change the world.

As he pushed into her, making her moan as he stretched her more than anyone ever had, he sent a pulse that would bring those with highly latent powers to the surface. Many would find out about those powers in the near future, and more would activate as they hit puberty. In the next generation, even more would have them.

This pulse gave a kickstart to those psionic gifts, too, making the average psychic far stronger. Even those active clans would be affected, both from the new availability of their energy, and in their enhanced ability to use it. Susan looked up at him curiously as he did it, having felt the thrumming pulse of energy flow through her.

Robert wasn't worried about getting his sister pregnant right away, he knew that it would happen soon enough, and she was young yet. He did start to focus far more on what he was doing, in order to make sure that she would have the most fantastic sexual experience she'd ever had.

Her empathy surged to full strength, and he allowed their intimate connection to forge a small bond between them. Her eyes widened as she identified the familiarity of the man busily thrusting his massive cock inside of her. "Robbie?" she said incredulously. It couldn't be true. This Dark God of a man just couldn't be her bratty little brother!

He raised a finger to his wide lips. "Shhhhh, Sissy," he said with a wicked grin. "You don't want mommy to know her only son just knocked her up, do you?" He lowered the admonishing finger to flick her swollen nipple.

She pushed on his chest futilely. "You! You're awful, get off me!" She was upset, but only half struggling with him.

"Aren't I just?" he chuckled. "And I'm not going to stop fucking you, Sis. That link of yours is two-way, and I can see that you're just as turned on as I am about this. Aren't you?" He started thrusting his cock even harder, making her cunt spasm violently around it.

"Oh god, Robbie," she said. "How in the world...? Oh, don't stop. Keep fucking me!" Her fingers dug into his muscular arms. He kissed her deeply and she responded with no reservations.

"I guess you could say that I sold my soul," he said. "It's the only thing worth selling these days, and it sure seems like I got a hell of a deal." He smiled at his unintentional pun. "What do you say that I finish giving you the fucking of your life?"

"Yes! Oh, Robert, do it to me." Susan couldn't wait to see to what heights that he was going to take her.

He bore down to pump her hard and fast, thinking his intense lust at her, and seeing her respond in return. The empathic link to him made Susan almost as passionate as their mother's craving for children had made her.

She was such a different woman, but he enjoyed her body as much as he had Maggie's. He brought her to a fantastic climax, and roared his completion in turn. He held her tight afterwards, as she continued to shudder for some time.

It wasn't long before she stirred and asked for more. Robert was happy to oblige her, for he'd just sensed the conception of his first child. He smiled. He could get to enjoy this kind of life.

 

To be Continued.

[Version : Revision C - 12/2014]


	4. "The Dark Palace."

Early the next morning, Robert went out to the side porch, where the ten men awaited him in a silent, deathly slumber. He wished to gain their allegiance, and failing that, he had decided that he would simply kill them.

"Awaken, Wolf," he ordered. The hairy man groaned, and sat up. He stiffened when he saw the Dark man standing there, dressed in black; jeans, shiny leather knee-boots, and a fine silk shirt.

The only color to his apparel was a royal blue full-length cloak and fat gold ring, set with sapphire pieces in the form of a four pointed star with steeply scalloped arcs between the points on a smoothed oval surface. His belt buckle and a cloak clasp had an enameled copy of the same design: a blue star with four points, slightly over lapping a gold oval over a black rectangle. The big man's hands held a bare human skull, and the big black club he'd had the last time Wolf saw him.

"Now your leader matches his nick-name," Robert said, tossing him the bone. Wolf caught it, but quickly let it fall. He got to his feet, on his guard. "Almost half of you are dead," the big man said. "The rest of you will join them if you don't swear to serve and obey me."

"Why should we?" Wolf said, seeing the too-quiet forms of his erstwhile fellows.

"Because I'm going to need men who can get things done," Robert said. "As long as you obey me, I'll tolerate you. You will all leave Maggie and Susan Black alone, as I have claimed them for myself."

"You don't expect us go without fuckin', do you?" Wolf complained.

"Hardly," Robert laughed. "My appetites are large, but I'm sure that there will be plenty of females available for the needs of my troops. You seem to be the highest ranked survivor of the gang. Do you think they will follow you in my service?"

"Dunno. What makes you think that I'll listen to you," Wolf said to him with a surly tone.

"Because I can give you Powers to match your name," Robert told him, and sent him an image of a feral wolf-man, snarling and baring long, sharp fangs. The creature in the image jumped lightly from the ground to the top of a car, and jumped from there into the middle of a knot of angry men. With claws and teeth, he inflicted a lot more damage to them, than their knives and metal pipes did to him.

Wolf shook off the vision. "Yeah, right. And how you gonna do that?" he said.

Robert tapped his chest. "Do you think I looked like this before I found the Rod? You'll be less powerful than I, as your master, but you will dominate the others.

"And what if I just took your toy?" Wolf said, grinning.

"Here," Robert said, and tossed it to Wolf, who caught it.

"God Dammit!" Wolf cursed as the Rod's dark energy flare seared the skin of his palms. He threw it down, and it jumped of its own accord into Robert's hand again.

Robert told him, "It's become a part of me. No one can use it until I'm dead, and it's made me Immortal. The World is stuck with me, but I don't really need you. Serve me or die, the choice is yours."

"Ok, it's cool. You' the man," Wolf said. "You' the boss, but I am gonna need some serious stroke to be your second. Can you really do that man-wolf thing?"

"See for yourself," the Dark man said, and he threw black fire at the other man.

Wolf screamed and it quickly turned into an agonized howl. Robert watched as his face stretched, and his legs curved back, destroying his shoes and ripping his clothes. His body sprouted an even thicker forest of fur, and he rapidly morphed into the form that Robert had tempted him with. It was soon finished, and the mutated man rose, shaking off his pelt like a wet dog.

He looked at his fur arms, and clawed hands, raising them to feel along his massive jaws. "Oh, cool," he growled, "I'm a werewolf!"

Robert's hand shot out and grabbed him by the throat, lifting the big beast-man off the ground, and squeezed just hard enough that Wolf's windpipe started to close off. The creature flailed in his grip for a moment in panic, futilely scrabbling at Robert's arm and kicking in the air. Robert released him, and fell with a heavy thud.

"I... I get your point," Wolf choked, coughing and clearing his throat. "Please, lay off."

"Just as long as you obey me," Robert said. "Now change back, and wake up the rest of them. Tell them that I will kill them if they don't work for me. If you let them get out of hand, I will kill *you*. Got me?"

Robert waited on the front porch for them to make up their minds. He didn't think it would take long, not with those options, and not with Wolf's changing as visible evidence to show them of their new master's power.

One of them was stupider than the rest. He ran for it after Wolf changed forms, and tried to escape the backyard. He burst spectacularly into flames, turning into a human pyre that spun about before collapsing into a smoldering heap of ashes. Wolf and the other eight came around the corner not too long after that. It had been an offer they weren't allowed to refuse.

Robert sat calmly on a big wooden chair. "You're all scum," he said. "But I need you, for now. I can't let you loose without supervision. If you were worth anything, you wouldn't have been molesting this family. So, either you are my warriors, obeying my orders precisely, or you die. It's not a hard choice."

Wolf bent his knee to Robert. This dog already knew his Master. The others reluctantly followed suit.

"Good," the Dark man said. "These badges have my symbol on them. While you wear them on my business, you have some immunity to bullets. You'll need it. I want you to go to every home and building in town, and inform the folks who live there that they are required to go to the Palace on the hill above Indian Cavern. What Palace? The one that will be there by the time you give the word to them.

"You are not to use any force. You'll have a feeling about who hasn't been told, so you can cover everyone. What if they don't choose to come? Not your problem. You are the messengers, and that is all."

"Just tell them to go the Palace," Wolf said. "Not for who, or even why?" "That's right," Robert said, and sent them on their way. He didn't want to live here anymore. The good memories he had of the house were more than outweighed by the horrible events of the last week.

In a flash of black light, he disappeared, and materialized on the scrubby hill that rose slowly from the ranches at the edge of town to dominate the surrounding landscape. He made the rock flow and form into supports for the vast weight of the Palace he envisioned, but leaving most of the cave system intact.

Once he had strengthened the hill, he poured a vision of every elegant edifice he'd ever seen, or which he now scanned throughout the world, into a dream of dark grandeur made real. He rose in the air and stood in a huge throne room of black basalt and obsidian. Different textures and shades of black were the backdrop of the room; jet, onyx and ebony.

The throne itself was a massive slab of translucent blue stone with heavy gold trim. On the wall above it was a large banner with his symbol prominent. Filling most of the vast space between the great doors of the grand entry-way and the many stepped dais of the throne was inset into the floor a four-pointed star shape, inlaid in Lapis Lazuli with a gold border a foot thick. The room's high arcing dome sported a skylight star that matched the size and shape of the one below, but tilted by forty-five degrees. Where the star on the floor pointed to the cardinal compass points, the skylight pointed to the cross-cardinals; Northeast, Southeast, Northwest, Southwest.

He walked to his throne, and sat awaiting his people. While he sat, he furnished areas of the Palace, starting with his quarters. He sent a thought to Maggie and Susan to gather their things; he had a new place for them to live, away from the memories of the house. Next, he outfitted the kitchens and staff quarters, and the dungeons.

To make their arrival easier, he created a broad, smooth road linking the edge of town with the Palace grounds. He also put signs in the Palace to make getting to the throne room from the Outer gates uncomplicated. Those who came had a hard time seeing where the hill in question was, or rather, where it used to be. The Palace flowed over its sides like a dark cancer to the foot of the hill. Tall spires reached high into the sky above, and dark, quiet caves still lurked beneath.

It took over an hour, but about a third of the town's several thousand filed into the great room, feeling dwarfed by its dimensions. The great doors closed, and Robert addressed them.

"Thank you for coming, My name is Robert. I have appointed myself the authority of this town, on the basis that I am more qualified to run it than anyone else. My qualifications for the job are the ability to provide food, goods, and services the community needs, and the power to protect those assets from outsiders. "Many of you no longer have any means to support yourselves. I need people to work for me in all capacities. As cooks, accountants, and guards, just to start. I can pay generously in food, goods, and security for now. I'll pay in money later when I establish a new currency.

"As far as I'm concerned, you either work, or you don't. Those who don't and have someone who works to support them are all right. Any minors who have no supporters I declare wards of the Empire, and I'll provide for them until their majority. Those whose job was to take care of them live here along with them.

"For those adults with no jobs or supporters, I am the employer of last resort. I will find you work, I will employ you myself, or I will sell your contracts for indentured servitude. One way or another, you will earn your keep."

Robert smiled. "It's not you who came when called that I'm worried about. It's the rest of the town, which I'm now compelling to come whether they want to, or not. I believe those might be more troublesome. Are there any questions?"

"Yeah," said a former county deputy. "Are you nuts?"

"No," said Robert. "Next question?"

No one else dared. The rest of town arrived and stood looking stupefied. Last came Robert's messengers, including Wolf, who carried the bleeding body of one of the eight.

"Who shot him?" Robert said. A man from the new group of townspeople raised his hand, apparently against his will.

"Why?" Robert asked him.

"The creep was trying to fondle my daughter," the man said, "and said he was going to rape her. I swear I'd do it again."

"Good man," Robert said. "You saved me the trouble. Those badges had no power to protect him when he started breaking my rules." He gestured, and all traces of the body disappeared. Wolf looked apprehensive, but Robert smiled at him, and he relaxed.

"That's it?" the sheriff said. "A man's been murdered, and all you have to say is good is 'good riddance'? You're crazy."

"No one can lie to me," Robert said. "I saw the truth in his mind and in his family's minds. The dead man was part of a gang who'd already killed a townsman you were supposed to protect, and raped his family. He lived on my sufferance, like the rest of these men. He merited death simply by disobeying my orders while he was on a suspended sentence. I do not coddle criminals, and will not support them to do nothing. They will work while doing their time. It's not as if you've been doing _your_ job.

"I'll get this town functioning again," Robert said. "But I'll be cutting out the deadwood to do it." He gestured towards the sheriff as he said this. "Those who simply want to go back to work, go home with your families. Supplies for your businesses will be here by tomorrow, even if you don't work for money, you'll be paid in food and other necessaries. For now that will have to do. Those who are hungry will find food waiting for you in your homes, and Medical personnel will have supplies in the clinics.

"Those who wish to see me for something else can stay, and I will deal with as many of you as I can." Most of the people left, with the orphaned and their caregivers going to their new quarters in the Palace. Others stayed who wanted a job in the Palace right away. Robert invited them to find something to do in the kitchens or other areas, and he would get back to them tomorrow as to exactly which positions they were to fill.

There were still several determined groups bent on giving him a piece of their minds. He called those who disagreed already with his policies to the foot of the dais. 'Lump it,' was the gist of the response from Robert; it wasn't a democracy.

There were more who wanted to retain some special privilege, their political position, or to increase their wealth at his expense. 'No,' was his answer to them, he would make his own appointments, and his own decisions, though advice was welcome; when he asked for it. He sent them back to their comfortable homes, but leaving them with a feeling of unease.

That left those with no other means, or smarts, than to try to freeload off the Dark man. The men he sent to some isolated quarters, then he smiled, and looked over the remaining women. Some of them looked on him as the town's most eligible bachelor. "I hope you realize," he said, "that I have no intention of marrying anyone, but I'll be happy to fuck any of you who simply must be had by me. My men will also volunteer to service you."

His eight remaining men laughed harshly, and rubbed their crotches suggestively. Several women who were offended at his crudeness left in a huff. Good, he thought. Soon only the hopeless users will be left.

A beautiful and busty redhead sauntered up to the dais, and walked up the steps to the throne. He stopped her with a glance before she reached him. Her name was Traci, and she was known throughout the town as a social climber, and a first class slut.

"Oh, come on, honey," she purred at him. You don't need anyone else but me. Send them away, and I know I can make you very happy."

"On the contrary," he said, grinning, "I intend to have a large harem, and if you persist in this, you will be appointing yourself as a member." She gave him a 'be serious' look.

He shook his head; he'd given her enough chances. "Come here to my feet, woman, you belong to me now." His power urged her forward and now Traci tried to resist him. She never wanted to be the property of any man, but she found herself kneeling at his feet despite her efforts.

"What do the rest of you want?" he asked. "Answer me truthfully. Do you wish to be free of both want and work?"

The general consensus of their answers was that his 'work or be made to work' decree was far too harsh. Here, a woman had married young to a rich man, and now divorced, she had lived on alimony now absent. She'd never had to work before, nor ever wanted to, so how would she live? There, an heiress's money came from the rentals of property she'd inherited, and not from any effort on her part. How could he make them work, when they'd never had to before?

"It's a fucked up world, ladies, and you're going to have to face facts," Robert said. "Those resources are simply no longer available. If you will not leave now, to try to find useful work, you will be made to be useful to my men!"

Two women tried to leave, but Robert shook his head. "You," he said pointing at younger woman. "You're not serious about working, you're just trying to get out of this." He pointed at the other one, "You can go, as you’ve seen the better of the idea. But the first one stays, to join in the party." He waited until the older woman was gone.

"Ok, Wolf, you and the guys can have them. They're good for nothing else, and they will serve your needs. But don't hurt them, got it?"

"Aye, and thanks, sir," Wolf said. "Let's get some, boys."

On the dais, Robert stood and opened up his button fly jeans. He reached for Traci's head and pulled her mouth to his cock, which quickly became hard as she bent to suck it.

Robert's warriors closed in on the remaining women, in order to throw them down to be fucked. The heiress cried out to him, "How can you let them do this to us?"

"Because it's all you know how to do," he said. "I gave you a chance to be useful, but all you wanted was to be the users. Now instead you'll be used."

Robert stopped talking, she wasn't listening anymore. Wolf had her on hands and knees, with her expensive skirt thrown over her back and her silk panties torn off. He was clutching her tits hard and pumping her cunt hard with his doggish cock. She was grunting almost as bestially as Wolf at the treatment she was getting.

The Dark man stroked Traci's head at his crotch. The divorced woman was one of two who were being made to french around the prick of a big man, who was giving them no choice but to do so. These were hardened, violent men, used to getting exactly what they wanted. The women were rich and pampered, unable to offer any effective physical resistance to them.

The room began to pulsate with Robert's lust. Traci was pulling off her clothes at his unspoken urging while he fucked her mouth with his cock. He stood, making his clothes vanish, and created large golden cushions at the foot of the throne, on top of the dais, and pulling her to him.

Robert pushed the town harlot down on the cushions, and kneeled between her legs, looming over her, at first just looking at her, and letting her look at him. He was a big man, just how huge she hadn't realized until this moment. His hard body, wide shoulders and broad chest were everything she always wanted in a man, but had never had.

His chest had a swirl of fine black hairs that plunged in a steep dive to the thatch of coarser curls at the base of his cock. Under his thick head of dark hair, his matching brows were bushy and wide. His face was clean-shaven, his features well formed, but his black eyes pierced her soul.

She had firm round tits, a narrow waist, and nice broad hips. Her trimmed pussy snatch proved she'd come by the red hair naturally. Robert had always thought so, and that if she were likely to take her hair color out of a bottle, she'd be a blonde.

She had the flawless skin and classic heart shaped face of her Celtic blood, but there was no warmth in her blue eyes, and the lines besides her wide mouth caused by bitterness, instead of smiles. She was the perfect trophy woman, always throwing herself at the most influential man around, but this man had her measure.

"I'm going to keep you," he said as he rubbed his cock on her cunt lips. "You'll join the others in my harem, and have my babies, just the same as they."

"You can't just use me like that," she said, struggling with him. She hadn't worked so hard to be the woman of a man with power, just to be 'kept' by this man and have nothing to show for it; no status, and no power of her own.

"Sure I can, 'honey'," he purred back at her. "I'm boss around here, and what I say goes." As he spoke he slipped inside of her.

Even Traci's blase attitude about sex was shaken up by that piece of meat. Long ago, she'd trained herself to use sex only as a tool, since it did nothing for her anyway. She wouldn't really let it get to her, but acted to make her partner think she had never had a better time. She wasn't sure she could keep up her reserve with this man.

"Ah," he said. "Whoring around has had its effects on you. You've had two abortions, and no births. But you do like cats."

"Bastard!" she hissed. "How did you...? I never told... I went out of state!"

"I know everything," he said. "Like how much you like roses." From above her head he pulled a perfect blood-red rose bud, and stroked her cheek, lips and throat with it, while he looked deep in her eyes. Unspoken in his face, a smile lurked in his eyes.

She'd never been so filled, not even when her Uncle Bob had forced himself upon her when she was ten. For most of her life, men had used her, so she'd decided that to get even, she would use them instead. Before Robert, she'd hadn't met a straight man she couldn't wrap around her finger at will. Somehow, she'd always picked the wrong man. The married ones, the gay ones, the abusers...

Robert slowed down, each stroke distinct so she could feel every one. She focused on the feel of his cock deep in her pussy, and as she did so, he started to gradually increase his tempo. A power burned in her. He'd found some vaginal scarring and other things that would reduce her responses, and he set to fixing them.

Deep in her cunt, his slowly speeding strokes were beginning to cause a tingling feeling. She'd felt it before, once in a while, but never anything more. She gritted her teeth. Usually at this point she began faking orgasms, but she wouldn't give this man the satisfaction.

The tingling grew stronger, becoming almost a burning. She writhed, trying to escape the unaccustomed heat in her groin. But Robert was relentless in his fucking. He held her tight and sped up even more. Then he would back off and go slow for a bit. The tingle began to cause little twitches in her cunt walls, something she couldn't remember ever feeling before.

The Dark man smiled at her again, because she was closer than she knew. He'd sensitized her clit when he healed her, and she was primed for one rip-roaring orgasm. Her cunt pulsed inside, and Robert suddenly started slamming her hard.

He was pounding her without pity, when it started. A buzzing flare that seemed to light up her nervous system, ignited somewhere near the tips of her toes, flashing up to the crown of her head, and zig-zagging between the two points several times, setting off little wildfires of ecstasy at several parts of her body along the way.

"Unnnhhh!" she groaned unconsciously, as her back arched in racking spasms, again and again. Robert rode through it, laughing in triumph at defeating her control, and bringing her to pleasure. She stared up at him in shock, her eyes glazed, at first unable to process the feelings she'd experienced.

She lay there shuddering, wondering how to take what had just happened to her. Robert stroked her with the rose again, over her tits this time, and kissing her face. "I'm going to make you my little kitten, Traci," he said.

He leaned back a bit, and said, mostly to himself, "You even played a part in a production of 'Cats' in college... and your latencies work well for that idea..." Before she had a chance to wonder what kind of madness he was talking, he blurred her senses and bent to altering her body. Incredible agility and great strength were among her genetic potentials that he tapped, as well as making her body even more sensitive to pleasure. All of her senses were enhanced, as well as her sense of spatial relationships and balance, and her instinct for danger and curiosity.

When he let her come aware again, something was different. She was purring. _Really purring_. Like a cat, deep in the throat, and vibrating her whole chest. In part, she had the form of a cat, and as much of the abilities of a cat as he could pack in that delectable body.

She could feel a light coat of fur on her body with her clawed hands, and her tongue traced the sharp fangs now in her mouth. A tail she'd hadn't had before lashed as she snarled at him. "What have you done to me?" she demanded.

"Given you what you've always wanted," he said in her ear. "The way you are now, you can defend yourself from anyone who wants to abuse you, even from Wolf. Ever seen a cat take out a dog twice its size before? Cats claws can do more damage. As long as I am your master, and the only father of your children, you can keep that body. I don't even care about other lovers, as long as we are clear on those points." He held her slitted blue eyes until she nodded her understanding.

"I won't have time to direct everything that goes on in the Palace," he continued, "or greet everyone who comes to see me. I'll need ambitious and diplomatic people to do some of these things for me. Do I take it that you volunteer for this sort of thing?"

She looked back into his dark eyes for a long time. Was he pulling her leg, tempting her with gifts and responsibility that he didn't intend her to have? Teasing her with her heart's desire, only to disappoint her, as she had been disappointed so many times before? With those questions unspoken by her, he shook his head, and she could not doubt that he meant his answer.

She would have what she had wanted; she had just never foreseen it happening quite this way. With a growl, she pulled him close, and kissed him hard, biting his lips. She'd always been willing to be owned, but only if she got some of the power in return. This strong and sexy body seemed to be a good trade for having only one master.

The two of them began to fuck again, while Robert's inaugural orgy continued on around them, unabated.

  

To be Continued...

[Version: Revision C - 12/2014]


	5. "Gifts of Power."

A few weeks later, Robert controlled several nearby towns and cities. He controlled most of Chickasaw, his home county, and part of two others, Fayette and Brewer, all in the Northeast part of Iowa. He was creating from nothing the materials and supplies needed to keep his small empire running, but it was easier still to create the raw materials and absorb the infrastructure to process it by capture or treaty. Some of the towns surrendered to him, and some had put up a fight, but in the end, they had fallen under his control.

Many young men had joined his first soldiers, in lieu of any other useful employment because basic soldiering paid twice as much as menial labor. His currency, the Imperial dollar (I$)*, had his face on the front and the Palace's outline on the back. Some jokester wag had suggested the sarcastic motto "In Rod We Trust," as a punch line, but it stuck anyway. Digging ditches was I$1 an hour, for a 40 hour workweek. On the other hand, being a recruit soldier in the army paid I$100 a week. I$50 could be exchanged for the shelter, food, and other necessities to keep body and soul comfortably together for one person for a week. Unlike the worthless US Currency, Imperial dollars meant something, at least where the black Imperial flag waved. It wasn't a perfect solution, following in the footsteps of a failed economic system, but it was a start, and its familiarity greased the wheels of economic activity.

Wolf was still around, unlike most of the original Midnight Guard composed of the ex-brigands. One by one they had broken rules or crossed the Dark man, and had paid the ultimate price. Wolf was the boss of a select group of soldiers, whose job was to back up the standard military at need, and to bring in alive any Powers they found. They'd been given special items that would allow them to capture any one with 'Super' gifts, and they were looking for an opportunity to use them.

They were investigating strange reports from Deer Falls, a town on the edge of the empire. Food and supplies were disappearing from the town with only a frequently reported blur to indicate any reason. Part of the Midnight Guard was assigned to determine the cause of the raids and to report back to the boss. They'd been there for days, and no news had come in yet. Robert knew it was only a matter of time before his squads brought him the first of the Emergent Metahuman Powers that he sought to work for him.

Before Deer Falls had fallen to him, the raids were infrequent, the town being no better off than the surrounding communities. But, when Robert had the textile mill that had been boarded up for years re-opened, jobs and pride had come back, too. With that prosperity, the raids had become bolder and more common.

Robert was on his throne, talking to the representative of a nearby county when the Midnight Guard arrived with the grimy prisoner. He was a young man, clad in a heavy set of shackles, the weight of which reduced him to a weary shuffle. Wolf came to the foot of the dais and whispered a report to his master.

Intrigued, Robert rose from the sapphire slab, and descended down to the steps. He took hold of the heavy chain attached to the massive black collar around the captive's neck, and forced the light brown eyes to meet his black ones.

"Hello, Jerry," he said pleasantly. "Pleased to meet you." The man's face worked, but an abrupt yank on the chain caused the wad of spittle he let fly to splatter on the floor. "Naughty, naughty!" Robert said. "I shall have to let you work off all that aggression."

Robert pulled on the chain again, sharply, and it all came off in his hands, shackles, manacles and collar. The man named Jerry stood free. He turned and bolted for the doors, which were already mostly closed. He moved so fast he began blurring, but he just hadn't got up to speed fast enough. By the time he realized he wasn't going to make it and put on the brakes, he was already too close. He crashed painfully into the big doors, and lay stunned, holding his bloody nose.

"Nice move, Mr. Conners," Robert said, applauding with polite gentility. "Have you chased any parked cars lately?"

With a curse, Jerry Conners got up and charged at the Dark man. Those familiar with the Emperor's temper expected to see mayhem, but he just stood there. Jerry blurred again, running in a tight circle around the big man, and onlookers could hear an almost continual series of blows hitting Robert, but his target remained unmoved.

"When your fists get tired, Mr. Conners," Robert said, while the blows rained on him, "perhaps we can talk. I think we have a lot to discuss."

Conners came to a sudden halt in front of him. "And why should I talk to a murdering traitor like you?"

"Murdering traitor?" Robert said. "Do you think that is what the British called the American Founding Fathers? And those gentlemen didn't have the excuse of their lawful government dissolving around them. They only had some pitiful complaints of unfair treatment. I prefer to consider myself a revolutionary, seeking to replace a corrupt and abdicated system."

Robert turned to the petitioner, who stood gaping at the bizarre apparition of a man achieving speeds in real life that before had only been achieved with rubber-muscle suits and cheesy special effects on the small screen.(**)

"Mr. Duncan," Robert said. "Tell us why Winneshiek County, Iowa wants to join my empire."

"Well, you guys have power, and gas," he said. "Folks here have food, and they're working again. And those soldiers of yours keep away the raiders. They've been hitting us instead, we lost two women to raiders this last week."

"Sign the agreement," Robert said, "and I'll have units in your county tomorrow, as well as everything else my administration offers. I will be honest with you. I would have had my army there soon anyway to conquer you, but I appreciate the civilized gesture you are making."

"He's robbing you of your liberty, and destroying what's left of the nation," the speedster said to the older man.

"Liberty don't mean nothing when your kids are hungry," Duncan shot back. "People here are *more* free. They don't have to scavenge or steal to scrape up a living, and they don't have to cower behind their doors at night. As for the nation, shit! What's it done for me lately? Took a third of my income last year in taxes, that's what. The bastards in Washington let my factory job that I worked 18 fucking years at go to Mexico, and I don't even get a pension. I was supposed to retire soon, dammit. I never got one of those IRA's, because I invested in the Pension Fund. Look where that got me."

"Basic support is guaranteed in my empire," Robert said. "If you're cold and hungry you're not a productive citizen."

"So, you're just going to give food and shelter away?" Jerry challenged.

"That's right, I am," Robert said. "It will be repaid in make-work I'll assign if nothing else. I'm going to set up a flat Imperial sales tax eventually, to offset the cost of the administration and staff. I won't need any of it myself, though. Tell me something, Jerry, what is wealth?"

"Huh?" Jerry said. "What is wealth?"

"Amassing wealth is the comfort of knowing that should times get rough, you will still be ok," Robert explained. "It doesn't help when the medium of wealth becomes worthless, though. But I don't need that kind of wealth." He held up his hands, spread flat, and a rain of gold coins poured onto them from out of the thin air. The coins fell in a steady stream, spilling over and falling in a growing pile on the floor.

Duncan picked one of them up, and peered at it closely, he even bit it. "It's real!" he said.

"Keep it, Mr. Duncan," Robert invited, as he stopped the golden rain, but still had his hands full of the shiny coins.

"Isn't that just a bribe?" Jerry asked Duncan.

Robert swept his hands out; scattering what was in his hands across the room, and making the pile at his feet vanish. Wolf picked up a coin off the floor, and bit it. "Aw, it's chocolate!" he said, as he peeled the foil off.

"Quit complaining," Robert said. "I pay you well enough." Wolf nodded, and ate the candy.

Robert called someone to handle the paperwork with Mr. Duncan, and turned back to the speedster. "Why are you raiding my towns, Mr. Conners?" he asked. He walked back to his throne, and put his hand on the black Rod that awaited him there, beside it.

"I have a family to feed," Jerry said, his voice filled with sarcasm, "and no-one's giving away free food in my town." He frowned, thinking hard about what he'd seen and heard.

"I'll see that your family is fed," Robert said. "Just stop raiding, and talk to your town about joining my area. I'd like you to work for me. I'm going to be actively recruiting Powers of all kinds, and you'll find it pays extremely well."

He extended a hand. "I'm willing to forgive your thefts. You didn't hurt any of my people, and you were only trying to help your family. I can sympathize with that. My powers came too late for me to save my family from harm. All I could do is avenge the dead and to rescue the living."

Jerry stared at the outstretched hand, but he didn't reach out. "Go ahead and take it," Robert said. "All it means is you will abide by my laws, and promise to convey my invitation to your town. You don't have to work for me, now or ever, if you don't want to. Though, you will have to find some useful employment. Perhaps you could be a courier?"

"You'll really help us, like with that other county?" the young man said, uncertainly. He slowly reached out his hand towards Robert's, but he didn't quite take it.

"Yes, I will," Robert said. He bridged the gap, reaching the rest of the way to grasp the speedster's hand. "One day I will do that for the whole country." He laid in a mild 'geas' on the young man that would insure the oral bargain, and placed a 'tag' on him so that he could be traced if it became necessary. "Go ahead and go to the kitchens. Get yourself a good meal, and take some food home for your family. Can you run all the way home?"

"I think so," Jerry said. He looked a little dazed at his change in fortunes. "Sir," he finished finally.

"Alright then," Robert smiled at him. "I look forward to seeing you again. Come back soon with your town's answers."

The speedster looked to the huge double doors, which were silently opening once more. He rubbed his nose. "Wouldn't want to do that again," he smiled ruefully.

Robert clapped him on the shoulder familiarly, and called for a staff person to get Jerry some food, and anything else he required, like a bath, clean clothes, and a copy of the agreement.

He turned to seat himself on his throne once more. It was still part of his open court time, and he felt it important to set a good example. Still, there was no reason why he couldn't make himself comfortable.

He called out his red-furred wench, Traci, out from the harem to the throne room. She came out, clad only in her fur, and a series of well placed silk straps. He looked at her admiringly, and then gestured for her to seat herself on the soft golden cushions at the foot of his throne. She'd long since accepted her new life, and enjoyed it.

The cat-woman sat beside him, and wriggled against his leg, purring. Someone from the kitchens brought in a drink, and Traci took it from them, and held it up for him. He smiled at her and took it, stroking her with the side of his foot. His other hand rested casually on the Rod, standing independently by the throne.

When the Rod suddenly leaped into his hand with a growl, he jumped to his feet, dashing his drink. At the doors, soldiers in Black Legion uniforms were escorting in a beautiful woman bound in handcuffs. Her hair was mostly shining bluish white, streaked with locks of a darker, duller grey.

Despite the apparent signs of age, she was obviously a young woman, with a figure to kill for. Her skin was flawless, and her eyes a glacial blue. She stood quietly, not offering resistance to the soldiers or the cuffs. Her wide eyes took in the room, looking at the royal trappings and remaining unimpressed.

She gave the various flunkies and servants a dismissive flick of her eyebrows, and concentrated on the central dais. Blue eyes held only scorn and contempt for Traci's subservient posture. Then they focused on the man standing before the throne. He read in those eyes no awe of him.

The Rod lunged in his grasp aggressively towards her. He followed it's urging, down to the floor in front of this woman.

"What is your name," he asked her, keeping a firm grip on the rumbling Rod.

"Rebecca White," her soft voice answered, unafraid.

Robert turned to the officer of the Legion squad. "Why did you bring her here? She doesn't look like the criminal type."

"Master! She has exhibited a strange power," the Captain said to him, formally, "and your orders were to bring in any such to your presence."

"So I did," Robert said. A soft white glow had begun to form around the woman as he drew near, and his brow furled at a sensation of discomfort, the first he'd had for weeks.

The Rod snarled viciously, drawing his arm back for a crushing blow that would smash her head off, but he fought it down. Instinctively he knew that she was his opposite number. She was the shining flame of purity and goodness, in stark contrast to his guttering coals of dark desires.

He didn't know what higher (or lower) power it was that had given his opposite to him in female form, but he thanked it, even so. This wouldn't just be a battle of the sexes, but of good and evil as well, and he was positive he had her outgunned.

"Hello, beautiful!" he said, smiling down at her. She looked so peaceful and harmless, dressed in a relatively clean blue dress, with her hands cuffed in front of her. She glared stonily up at him. He turned on his aura of sexual charm that always seemed to 'ease' negotiations with females.

Besides her white glow brightening a little, he saw no change in the expression in her eyes, no additional warmth in her voice as she began to accuse him.

"So you're the slimy pervert who's been mass murdering men, and raping their women?" she said. "Surprising. I'd have thought that you'd look more like the low-life scum you are, rather than a clean cut football-jock with delusions of grandeur."

His brows furrowed thunderously. How dare she speak to him like that! "Well, you're a saucy bitch," he said. "Give me a kiss." He held her chin in a strong grip and turned her head to him. Her lips went from a drawn back snarl to spitting in his face.

Robert paused, wiping his face and striving to keep his composure. He turned to the soldiers that had brought her, "Thank you, Captain. You and your men are dismissed." He looked around the room. "You can all go. You too, Traci, my little kitten."

The throne room emptied out, reluctantly. The courtiers and soldiers wanted to watch and see what the Lord would do to this upstart woman. Traci slipped to the entrance to his quarters, flicking her expressive tail.

They were alone, and Robert released her handcuffs. "What's the matter," Rebecca said. "Can't stand to have them see your legendary whiles flop on someone?"

He crushed her too him, turning her head again and forcing the kiss, this time. Her white glow built up, and blasted him like a physical blow, forcing him to release her.

He quickly evaluated the discomfort, and her powers’ potential to damage him. He felt that it couldn't really harm him, just annoy him. A lot. But despite that annoyance, he had a feeling he could last long enough rape the shit out of her. Maybe that would teach her to treat him some respect.

He grabbed her by the arms cruelly. She tried her blast of white again, only to see him grimace, and still hold on to her.

"I've been pretty easy going so far. I've only killed the really bad men, or raped the women who deserved it. But you have pissed me off, you little slut, and you're going to get what's coming to you!"

"And what gives you the right to decided these things?" she said.

"I have the power," he snapped. "That's all that's necessary." Midnight fire rose about his hands, strong enough to jolt her, as she had previously singed him. At least that was his intent. With a last twist of defiance, the Rod upped the heat of the flames a thousand-fold. The black fire made her pale face even whiter as she gasped in pain. Only the quiet white aura that surrounded her shielded her from serious, if not deadly injuries.

He let go of her with a brusque, "Sorry." She laid her hands on the reddened marks on her arms. A more intense light shone from between her fingers, and the pained look left the cold blue eyes.

"Not quite in control of yourself, are you?" she said, looking intently into the black and angry eyes. "No," she said in a musing tone. "You're not entirely in control of the powers you wield."

"And you are?" he said sarcastically.

"Yes, I am," she said. "The power's I have didn't change who I am. It didn't alter my underlying philosophies, or the self-control I have always had. The powers are a part of me. Yet _I_ am *not* the powers."

"What's the difference, bitch?" He was angry and confused by the conversation. He didn't feel in control of the situation for the first time in weeks, and she was going to pay for it. Once more, he grabbed her arms, and threw her to the cushions. He tried to make her clothing vanish, but her aura partially thwarted him.

She lost her belt and shoes, but retained the rest of her clothing. He frowned and straddled her, using his superior strength to tear her clothes off, despite the stinging of her bright aura, and her flailing struggles. He could see that this wasn't to be easy, but he was determined to go through with it.

He ripped off her dress, and with difficulty, got her bra unhooked and pulled off. Her hands rose to shield her pale breasts, and he tore the lacy sides of her panties as he dragged them off, while dodging her kicking legs. Her pubic hair was the same white/gray mix of hairs as that on her head. As he looked down at her nude body, she rolled over on her belly, trying to prevent him from seeing her tits or cunt.

He didn't care. There was her fine ass presented to him. He brutally forced her legs apart and knelt between them, naked. He put one hand on her back to pin her on her belly, and with the other hand began to squeeze and fondle her firm round butt. She struggled against his weight, but she didn't bother to plead with him. She knew that would useless.

He created an anchoring ring besides the throne, and a length of chain connected to it. Another silent, desperate wrestling match saw her again yield to his strength and size. One at a time, he forced her hands up and manacled them to the chain. That was better; with her hands stretched above her head, he could do anything he wanted with her.

Laying on her heavily, crushing her, he made her grunt for breath. His hard cock jabbed between her ass cheeks, while his hands reached around her to squeeze and maul her tits. He kissed and bit her neck as his cock oozed pre-cum in her slot. He reached down and rubbed his tip over her cunt, getting it slick for him. Finally he slipped his tip just between her tight lower lips.

She squealed, frantically trying to squirm away from him, despite knowing it was a hopeless attempt. His hands went to her broad hips as he tried to shove his cock further in her cunt. He gained an inch, and she made a pained sound. That and the incredible tightness told him that she was a virgin. He smiled. "It won't be long, pretty virgin, before I pop your cherry," Robert said. "I'm stuffing my great big cock inside you, and then I'll pump you full of my cum. Won't that be fun?" He felt excited. He'd never raped a woman who was wholly unwilling before. He radiated his dark energy inside her tender cunt, making her gasp. She retaliated with her own energy, but he was ready for the stinging on his cock. It made him even more determined to conquer her.

He rocked his hips, rotating, stretching her around him, then pushed another inch deeper. She moaned again, rattling the chains her wrists were bound with. He used his power to stimulate her clit and nipples. He couldn't bend her mind, but she couldn't focus tight enough to stop him from affecting her body. She writhed in protest, but couldn't prevent him.

A hard thrust forward, and a pull on her hips had the tip of his cock pressing hard against her maidenhead. He intensified the stimulation, and rocked himself in circles again. Digging his fingers in at her hips with bruising force, he shoved his dick inward while pulling her back, breaking her hymen. He felt the pain shock go through her, and he poured the dark energy into her, getting hardly a flicker of resistance in return.

Relentlessly, he defiled her; working his huge cock into her tight pussy, while using his black power to make her body respond to him. He never gave her a chance to recover her wits, or to focus her energies to attack him or defend herself. Inch by inch he gained ground until the great length of his shaft was buried in her, slapping his balls against her mound.

He rested a moment while she panted under him. He reached up to play with her tits, focusing the power to manipulating her clit now. He began to fuck her with fast, powerful strokes. The friction was incredible; she was still so tight around him. He felt that his assault was beginning to make her react. All the physical stimulation was more than she could resist, and his seduction aura was starting to work on her, too.

She came a little, with a sharp cry, and he let himself orgasm inside of her, enjoying her disgusted face as he spasmed deep within. He stayed rock hard and continued to fuck her for hours, never letting up. He turned her over and began to suck and nibble on her engorged nipples, while he screwed her.

He made her come, over and over, learning her responses and feeling her body give in to him, but her eyes never lost their cold anger at his rape. He laughed at her. Her body's surrender was sufficient victory for now. He'd conquered her body; the rest could wait for another day. For his last orgasm, he pulled back and sprayed jism all over her belly and tits. She just turned her face away, forced to submit to this new indignity.

Knowing he'd never have a better chance, he reached for the Rod, and pressed it to her pale neck. He forged a dull black collar around her throat, one that she couldn't remove. It would allow him to reach through her white protection shield and affect her against her will. A flash of darkness and she had some permanent jewelry. The ebony necklace and the two matching bracelets lay sullenly against her white skin.

He looked down at her. "So, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked her, rubbing his come into the flesh of her belly and breasts. "You'll come to see that I'm not such a bad lover, after all."

He let her hormones settle down, and her eyes blazed. "Bastard!" she said, and tried to blast him with her white energy. But she was weakened, and thoroughly contaminated with his darkness. It didn't even sting him.

"Best you can do, eh?" he laughed. "Let's see how you do in the dungeons, pretty Rebecca. Maybe that will teach you some manners."

Deep in the caverns under the Palace she appeared in a large dimly lit chamber. There was a stone shelf against the back wall of a small alcove, with a bunk on it, and to the side, a primitive toilet. There was a table with some food, and a small fountain collected the mineral laden water leaking from the stones.

She laid down, trying to get some rest after her ordeal. In the darkness, she heard something move. When she sat up and looked around, there was nothing there. Eventually she lay back down again, and tried to ignore the noises that stealthily approached her. Maybe it was a rat, or nothing at all... she hoped...

To be Continued...

(*) When first written, Imperial Dollars (I$) were gold and silver based, but I've thought the better of that in the decades since, so I've pegged the currency to something harder to define but more crucial to survival.

(**) Boy that dates this story… does anyone even still remember the [original] Flash live-action TV series anymore? [<<\-- Even this note is dated, now. The new Flash series is soooo much better than the early 90's program. Also, neat trivia; the guy who plays Barry's Dad in the new one, played Barry in the old show.]

[Version: Revision C - 12/2014.]


	6. "Hell Hath No Fury Like A Women Scorned."

_[Begin Interlude: Somewhere... **Else...** in the Multiverse.]_

"Foul play! We protest, Lightbringer! We request an audience with the Greater Light to complain." These words were spoken by a large yellow-skinned being, with four arms, wings, a bifurcate tail, and two sets of tusks, one for each mouth.

"I have already heard from the Creator," the golden energy being known as Krueger said, ignoring the hiss of distaste from the first speaker. "My Master will not Hear this matter, and has appointed me to referee this conflict."

"How do we know you speak the Truth?" the Destructionist speaker asked suspiciously. "Or that It said this to you."

"Do you doubt my Word, or _His_?" Kruegar responded quietly, the golden glow of the humanoid form increasing sharply; making the other shield its eyes in pain. More conversationally, Kruegar continued. "You could have brought this matter up with my Master's opposite self, and got a more sympathetic response."

"Our Dark Master's words hold no sway with the light spawn... yet. But _yours_ does," it said with a snarl.

"And besides, Lord Kaos had already refused to intervene in this minor matter, right?" Kruegar said with a shrewd guess. "Very well, what is your complaint?"

"Some light spawn has interfered with an unaligned dimension in the buffer zone," it said, "which was agreed to be a non-interference region, in the Treaty that ended the Battle of Midpoint. They have granted some Creationist powers to an _ephemeral_ * on a certain dimension within the zone, with the specific purpose to turn a pivotal world closer to Creationist control. "Should the Alignment of the dimension alter enough, it will no longer be neutral-to-dark, but of the hated Light. We protest this blatant move by the Creationist, to deprive us of influence by subverting the world's natural development."

Kruegar nodded. "What say you, Spokesman of Creation?" he asked.

A silver mist formed, and from it appeared a tall gray-skinned humanoid. The being was dark haired, with six fingers on each hand, slightly pointed ears, and molten silver eyes. "Hi there, ugly. Healed up nicely, I see. But, unfortunately, you're just a revolting as ever," the alien female smiled, showing a set of sharp silver teeth.

"You still bear the scars of my wounding as well, Rider," it retorted. "I heard you had to quit your body to recover from that last battle. Too bad it wasn't permanent."

"Gentlebeings!" Kruegar said. "Rider, answer the question I put to you."

"I fear that one of my people is 'Guilty, provisionally.'” It was a dead on imitation of a certain balding Starfleet captain.

"They admitted their guilt, make them withdraw the light power," the gruesome being said quickly. Too quickly.

"What is the provision? I must remind you that no provisions were specified in the Treaty being referred to here," Kruegar said.

"Save those of long custom, previously in use," Rider countered. "So, you claim that _we_ interfered? We already knew about the Destructionist contamination of that world in the form of the Black Rod. We just tried to balance things out again."

"By endowing _another_ mortal?" the demonic creature said, incredulously. "The custom was that if one side tempted someone, the other side could attempt to sway that being to their side. You have simply bequeathed light powers to a separate being, instead of trying to convince the first to turn."

"Therefore you admit to the first interference, and by so doing, your complaint is moot, and dismissed," Kruegar said. "However, why did your side take this action, Rider?"

"Their _'gift'_ was not meant to **turn** just an individual. The Rod's influence was intended to use their mortal subject to alter the alignment of the whole world. Thus we concluded the true target was not any one person, but the Paradigm of the entire dimension. Our agent is there to provide a counter balance. If their side will cease any further interference, we swear to do so as well. I, for one, would be interested to see the final result."

"It does seem that it will be an interesting experiment," Kruegar said. "Very well, I will seal the dimension from outside. We will set up a committee from both sides to observe and comment on its progress. Choose whom you would from your clans, and I will supervise and chair the committee."

"You lost again, ugly," Rider said. "Or don't you remember who dictated the terms of that Treaty you just tried to hide behind?"

"This will do," it replied, confidently. "Our servant is much stronger than yours. He will prevail against her foul light."

"Will he really?" Rider mused. "I think you'll find that she's stronger than your realize."

_[End Interlude: In a bubble of Neutral space attached to the Ultra laced Meta shield surrounding the Darkside's dimension.]**_

-=-

Rebecca moved towards waking. She felt heavy, with a concentration of urgent heat at her groin. Darkness and dark power was all about her. In her dreaming state the weight and heat took on the form of Robert Black, trying once more to invade her body, and humiliate her soul.

"No!" she cried out, still sleeping. She flared the bright light of her outrage intensely at the Darkness.  Rebuffed, it fled. By the time her eyes opened, all she heard were rapidly retreating noises. She couldn't see anything, even in her soft glow, but she was covered with some sort of mucus slime. She was aroused, her nipples red and swollen, her clit tingling, and her labia puffy. She felt like someone had been molesting her, but she couldn't sense anyone else in the dank cave she was banished to.

Rebecca's body still quivered from unfulfilled need. Moaning, she lay back on the bench, with one hand playing with her clit, and other squeezing her breasts. As she had so often before, she began to pleasure herself. Her right index finger traced firm circles around her sensitive sexual organ, occasionally brushing it directly, while she gently pinched her nipples.

Her breath quickened, and the tingling reached heights she'd never felt before... what happened yesterday. She shook her head, banishing the memory of the Dark man, or tried to. It was her only experience, and almost against her will, as her aching cunt clenched on nothing, she thought of the mighty cock that had been rammed in there the day before. So hard and yet giving, the feelings it had given her were incredible. If only it wasn't wielded by such a creep...

In sudden spasmatic jerks, she came. Her orgasm as intense as any she'd ever given herself, if not a little more so. Her need retreated and she lay still, panting. In the aftermath, she felt torn between the guilt her religious background decreed, and a knowledge that the adult body built up nervous tensions that required the occasional grounding of orgasm to ease.

When she recovered, she went to the brackish fountain, and cleaned off the drying slime that covered her. During her ablution, she could feel a deeper stain that water could not touch. She ate a light breakfast from the food provided in the covered plates, and sat on her bench to meditate.

For hours, Rebecca sat there, trying to root out the darkness Robert had filled her with. She found that her hot anger at her rape fed it, and made it stronger. Only after a painful inner search to discover her forgiveness of her brutal assault, could she begin to reduce its presence. Again and again she flooded herself with her light, to purify herself. She came to realize that she blamed herself, as she'd seen rape victims do. With a sigh, she acknowledged that she had no control over his actions, and so she couldn't be at fault.

That helped, the point of darkness in her shrank almost to nothing. Undaunted, she sought out the last of it. Deep within, she harbored a guilty attraction for the Dark man, and even more guilt that she had responded to his sexual attack. Dwelling on the guilt made the dark spark jump in response.

She fought to calmness again. She visualized him clinically, in the light of her forgiveness, and her acknowledge of the autonomy of his actions. He was handsome, even beautiful in a classical fashion, and deliberately dark. He was an elemental force of destruction, like an earthquake or a tornado. One could admire the awesome power of such a thing, without laying any moral judgments on it. She also realized, that she didn't really like the muscular type, and that she much preferred brains to brawn.

The pinpoint subsided to the merest speck that she had not yet banished. Her responses, she knew, were forced by him, or were in self-defense to his assault. The body responded in certain ways to certain stimuli regardless of what the mind wanted. He had the element of surprise. The novelty of the sexual act to her, and the pain of her rape allowed him to give his darkness and seductive powers a toehold in her. It wouldn't be so easy for him, next time.

She touched the collar around her throat, and sighed. She knew there would be a next time. But whatever he did to despoil her body, he could not touch her mind and spirit, if she did not allow him to.

She could do nothing about preventing his rapes, since their powers worked to cancel each other out, and he was physically stronger than she. But nothing she could do would frustrate him more that to know her mind was still her own, and that he could not control her.

It would be a minor victory, in the light of conceding her body's surrender. But it was all she thought she could manage for now. It would take time for her to accomplish anything more. She chuckled to herself. It was like 'The Force' from the movies. His energy was quick, dirty, and wild; while hers was calm, clean, and slow.

She had to absolve herself of guilt from the self-imposed crime of responding sexually to the enemy. As long as she held it against herself, the pinprick of evil would remain. She had no choice in her responses, and for now she had to accept the situation. Finding herself blameless of wrong doing, she filled her soul with intense light, and watched as the last spot of corruption was destroyed. Patience and love must be her watchwords. He would try all over again to get to her, but as long as she could find her peace, he would never prevail.

She knew her light was her advantage. She could see the damage that the poisons of hate and loathing had done to her. A normal victim of rape would try to hold on to those feelings, little realizing how much they harmed her. Hate made them feel in control of their rage, and any kind of control was better than none. Self-loathing made them feel that it wasn't their fault, and conversely that their own unworth could explain the reasons of an unreasonable act.

-=-

That afternoon, Robert summoned her out of the Dungeon. He noted with annoyance that there was no sign of the darkness that he had filled her with the day before. At his gesture, she was dressed in something flimsy and silver. "Come here," he commanded her, and she decided he had nothing to gain by refusing him in small matters.

The thin black chain of her leash snaked up her body, and mated itself to her collar. Robert pulled her forward by it, and squeezed her breast. She pulled away at that, but he jerked her back by her chain. "You're going to get a front row seat in my Court, my dear," he said to her.

He pushed her to sit on a large black cushion besides the throne. He idly played with the slender chain as she took in the throne room, today. On the other side of Robert, the reddish cat-girl, Traci was curled up on a golden cushion, dressed in black leather straps.

A few petitioners were leaving the front point of the golden star set in the flooring stones. The huge four-pointed skylight was letting in shafts of polarized sunbeams into the great room. It created a star-shape of light; it's points aiming to the corners of the room as it crossed the floor star. A small band of Imperial Legions came in, dragging in several dirty men in chains.

"Your Majesty," the officer said. "Our squad was set on Patrol to enforce the Martial Law decree. We have caught these men, and we need to know what to do with them."

"What was their crime, Captain?" Robert asked.

"Drug smuggling, and dealing, sir. You told us our base laws to enforce were 'the American Common Law', and drugs are in violation of that law." One of his men brought up several large bricks of plastic wrapped marijuana, and set them down.

Robert shook his head. "As this nation started off with British Common Law, except for the new laws the colonists created, so shall I modify and simplify American law. I agree with the view that voluntary drug use isn't a crime, nor is providing those drugs. If fool wants to poison his body, he's free to do so."

Rebecca couldn't stay silent on this point. "What if the dealer is selling bad product, or is holding up the buyer? And, what will you do if a user collapses and needs medical care? Will you foot the bill for his care, or leave him to die?"

Robert looked down at her in surprise. "Those are good questions, my sweet. All right, for the record: Fraud and robbery are against the law regardless. Those crimes would be punished even if drugs were not involved. If someone with a self-inflicted condition comes in for medical care they can't afford, they will be cited to perform community service to pay off the debt to the public who paid for it." He nodded to himself, satisfied with the amendments. "Oh yes," he said, "and selling to children is child abuse. I very much frown on child abuse."

He turned to the dealers. "Make sure your junk is uncut and pure. Do not under any circumstances force anyone to buy it, or dare to sell it to kids. You will also provide clean needles, if necessary, on demand; you can get them from me for now. Do these things and you can sell to whoever will buy from you in my territory. If I add any more rules, I'll let you know. Violate my rules, and I will crush the offender."

"What constitutes a child, or a legal minor?" Rebecca asked.

"Huh," he said. With a frown, he considered the notion. "Under 16. At 16 if they can pass a test proving they understand adult responsibilities." Giving those before him his attention again, "Unchain them, Captain. You, take your stuff and go."

The smuggler's leader held out a brick to Robert, "Thanks, Chief, wanna sample? You can have it."

"Robert smiled, "No, thanks. I'm quite Dark enough already. Who needs drugs when you have absolute power? Now, get out of here," he waited until he saw them leave. "On a similar note, Captain, don't bring anyone in here for a consensual sex act between adult, no matter what the act is, and whether or not money changed hands. Abusing children is, of course, a separate matter, one that I will judge."

"I suppose that rape isn't a crime?" Rebecca muttered.

"Bring in those accused of rape, of course, and I will judge them as well," Robert said. "That is all for today, folks. Please clear the courtroom."

"'Power corrupts, and absolute power...'" Rebecca began, under her breath.

"'...Corrupts absolutely," Robert finished for her. "And I am absolutely corrupted, my dear." He turned to Traci, "You go on too, Kitten. I need some time alone with the Ice Queen."

The woman now known as Kitten, gave Rebecca a pitying look, but sauntered to the rear doors that led to the Emperor's Quarters, and the Harem.

"Well, go on and say it," he invited, "those words I feel that are just sitting on that acid tongue of yours."

"So, who's going to judge you for your crimes of rape, 'm'lord'?" she hissed accusingly. "Or don't your laws apply to you?"

"Of course not," he said with a smile. "What's the use of power if you can't squeeze some perks out it?"

She thought to herself, 'Oho! I can already see that one is going to come up and bite him eventually. What's good for the goose, will be considered good for all the other geese as well.'

"That was some good thinking in there. I need a clear thinker like you. I'm still making all this up as I go..."

"I can tell," she said sarcastically. "Or doesn't the word 'hypocrite' mean anything to you? If you don't feel bound to follow any laws, why bother enforcing any? Why not just let everyone else act as they please, also? Or is that _your_ sole prerogative?"

Robert frowned. "Certain things are just wrong, no matter who does them, and I won't permit them. If Chaos reigned, no one could be happy, because only the strongest would have everything they truly wanted, and then only until the mob cut them down. Even then the mob wouldn't be happy, because there wouldn't be enough spoils to go around."

"You just said that laws only apply, until _you_ want to break them. If an eight year-old beauty queen in makeup and pasties appeared here before your throne, you'd be happy to rape her, wouldn't you? Admit it, Kingy!"

Robert half shook his head, but there was a troubled look hinted at in his dark eyes. Rebecca pressed her momentary advantage. "Laws must apply to EVERYone, or they protect NO-one. You can see the necessity of laws, but not how your own actions invalidate them?

This time he shook his head forcefully, and his eyes hardened. She'd gone a step too far today, she knew. But she had would have lots of time to work on him. She just wished she knew if the greater power that appointed her to be Robert's conscience, realized what it would entail...

He yanked her chain, hard. "I asked you a question earlier, bitch," he snarled, "Will you join me?"

"How can I refuse such a gracious invitation?" she said, her sarcasm fairly dripping in her voice. "Get bent, pervert!" she said. "I won't help a monster like you."

"Then you will pay the price for your obstinacy," he growled, almost pulsing with darkness to her sight. You name me a pervert? Very well, Rebecca, let's try something dirty today."

He forced her to her feet by the collar, and ripped off her silver wisps. She blasted him with her stored power, and he cursed. He picked up the black cushion and threw it on the throne, and spun her about, pushing her face first onto the softness. He pried open her legs, and plunged his huge tool into her sore cunt, increasing her wetness and coating himself liberally with her juices. She gripped the pillow, trying to make it through the attack, as she had yesterday.

 Until he pulled out, and placed the dripping tip of his dick at the entrance of her virgin asshole, that is. She screamed when she realized what he was going to do. And her fear just made him laugh.

"That's right, cunt," he said. "I'm going to ream your ass. Won't that be fun?"

"No!" she cried furiously, with an edge of hysteria. She tried to blast him again with her white glow, but it had less force, and he ignored it. He gave a grim smile at her pathetic resistance, and started to put his weight behind his cock.

Slowly, her tightly closed sphincter started to open to the bruising force he applied to it. Reluctantly it yielded enough for her to feel that she was being ripped open, and his head wasn't all the way in, yet.

He kept working it, adding a slick lubrication, and pushing his cock relentlessly into her rear. He thought about letting her flesh tear and bleed, but he thought he'd enjoy it more if he made her come to like it. She squealed suddenly, and he felt his head pop into her ass. He tight muscle ring snapped shut just below his head, holding him within her.

"That wasn't so bad, was it, baby?" he said, reveling in the tight squeeze around his cock. Slowly, like yesterday, he began a rocking motion, loosening her and driving ever deeper into her pain-seared bottom. She could feel his head, a massive knob the size of her fist, pushing deep inside her body.

He was able to start up a decent stroke now, so he leaned on her and began squeezing her firm breasts. Gradually he began to use his dark power on her again, using her shock and pain as the entry past her control and resistance. He manipulated her clit with his powers, and altered her pleasure levels.

She'd stretched incredibly to accommodate his tool, and still he was pushing deeper. But it didn't hurt so much now, and all the other stimulation was starting to get to her. Her sobs turned sharper when she realized he was forcing him to respond to him again. Soon she would suffer the humiliation of being made to come to orgasm from him buggering her ass.

He seemed determined to bury his cock in her rectum, to somehow get her anus to stretch enough to accept all of him. Her hot tears flowed, but she bit her lips to keep herself from making useless pleas to him to stop his assault.

Robert was lost in the struggle, grunting animalistically as he kept on battering her bowels. He had no concern for her feelings, and very little for her chances of injury. He was stimulating her, but not putting on an artificial block against the pain of his fucking.

Sometimes the pain was sharp, as he stretched her to a new depth, and at other times there was just the dull ache of her insides in response to his ceaseless pumping. Slowly he filled her lower colon, inch by inch until she realized that his pubes were touching her ass. With the next deep thrust, she was sure, as his bush ground into her butt. She sighed in relief, for that meant that he wasn't going in any deeper. The bad news was that now he was going to go faster!

"I'm glad you're happy that I'm all the way in you," he grunted.

Now that he'd plumed her depths, he began to build up his speed. The aching began to fade behind a slow wave of endorphins. Her own reaction were beginning to adapt her to the intrusion, and to blend the sensations of his rape into the mounting feelings he was creating in her.

Her tears turned to shame as she began grunting in rhythm with him. She couldn't help it, he pushed so far into her the noise was instinctual. As his ramming continued, her sounds became stronger, and more like moans of pleasure. She built inexorably up to a small climax, that lurched to a much strong response when her body reacted to his solid presence in her body as she clamped down. She gasped, panting, clawing at the cushion. She didn't know that it was possible to just feel okay, and then suddenly spike to pure ecstasy.

She could *feel* his low laughter, as he gently mocked her grudging responses. He began focusing on her pleasure more, knowing that his greatest satisfaction came of making her like what he did to her. When she cried out to her god for mercy and begged, he'd hose her out with a semen enema. That was what he was waiting for.

Her noises were almost cries of encouragement, and they climbed higher as she built to another orgasm. He began to talk to her, "I think you really like this, baby," he said in a gloating voice. "Maybe you're a closet masochist."

She spared enough breath to call him a son of a bitch.

He smiled that he'd gotten to her, and sped up his sodomy. A hot flush ran through her as she begun to build again. Her nipples were almost hurting from his constant tweaking, and her clit felt glorious. She knew that he'd do it to her again, make her totally surrender to him.

She began to tense, waiting for the lightning to course through her, setting her nerves ablaze in wildfires of pleasure. For a moment, she could almost forget he was her enemy, and that he was basely raping her. His damnable advantage was that his power could take an act that should be brutal agony, and transmute it into guilty pleasure. It gave less wear and tear on the victim's body, but left a humiliating stain on the soul, and he well knew it.

The lightning struck her without warning, and she gave a full-throated scream. Her body clenched down hard on him, and he filled her with his sperm and darkness. She lay limply on the cushion as he pulled out of her, and cleaned them both.

"Thank you, my dear," he said mockingly. "For such a wonderful fuck. I've begun to expect that of you."

She didn't have the energy to return his gibes, so she just slowly crawled to her feet. "I suppose it's time for me to return to the dungeons?" she said wearily.

He shrugged, "Unless you want to go to my Quarters and join my harem?"

"Thank you, but no," she said. "I like the quiet down there. I can think."

"As you wish, sweetheart," he smiled, and with a wave she again stood in her cave-cell.

She hoped that at least the slither-thing would leave her alone that night. She didn't think she'd be able to bear to wake up again all covered with slime. Rebecca was asleep almost as her mind had framed the thought...

  

To be Continued...

 * ** _Ephemeral_** : Less than polite term for mortal humans… _“Thy puny centuries fly by so quickly…”_

 ** **A/N:** A note about the mythology behind the interlude is in order, I think. The being known as "The Greater Light", "The Creator", or "Lord Shadow" (Short for Lord of Shadows, in a Roger Zelazny 'Chronicles of Amber' sense.), etc. is, for lack of a better word, *** _God*_**. "The Lightbringer", or Kruegar, is a being of considerably lesser power than the Creator, but still a partaker of the **Ultra** energy, which is orders of magnitude greater than that of the other two in the interlude. Those arguing their cases before Kruegar are **Metas** , immortal creatures who travel across the dimensions as easily as we cross a street. The next step down the power hierarchy are **Primals** , or gods, (little g), such as the Greek gods, defined as being immortal, but limited to a single dimension. (These terms come from a P&P RPG called "Primal Forces".) Those who have abilities more than normal humans, but who are still mortal, are Powers, Psis, or Mages. The Rod catapulted Robert squarely into _Dark Meta_ territory, and thus he's in WAY over his head. The complaint in the interlude is that a Creationist gave Rebecca _Light Meta_ powers in response. Since both sides admitted to relatively equal interference, Kruegar decided to take a wait-and-see attitude, and wall off the immature Metas to the confines of their home dimension.

 [Version: Revision C - 12/2014.]


	7. "The Spreading Darkness."

Rebecca woke up, having spent the night on the hard bench thankfully undisturbed. It was harder for her to find her calm center this morning. Hating him was just so easy to do, and that only fed the darkness that he had contaminated her with again. It was easier to forgive herself for responding. She understood deep down that he was giving her absolutely no choice about that.

It was very hard to forgive HIM. Despite the darkness that obviously controlled him, and despite his evident immaturity, part of her just resented him for what he'd been doing to her. The Rod was the key -- She somehow felt that Robert was a victim of the darkness as much as she.

He could do things so effortlessly with the black energy, but her white power was slower and surer. She meditated, and sought to know more about the 'emperor'.

It was almost as if her power had been waiting for her to ask... she saw the boy Robbie, hiding from his family's abusers, and fleeing for his life [Darkside USAN 01]. She could see the men chasing the boy to his fall in the cave, and though she couldn't hear the Rod's temptations, from his replies and actions she could guess. When he changed to Robert, she understood; he was a boy playing with a new toy, sex! [USAN 02.]

She observed as the Darkness took him completely. He murdered the raiders, and molested his family [03]. She watched as he embraced the course he was now on. He built the Palace, like a shrine to his corruption, lurking above the cave where his soul had been taken [04]. He declared himself an Emperor, and began to gather armies and territory [05].

The Palace was over this very cave that he'd imprisoned her in. Perhaps he hoped she'd turn "to the Darkside" here, as he had. From the visions she'd seen... why, the rat had put her bunk directly over the crystals that had held the sleepy ebon evil. But she still didn't understand what was the slither-thing. Just thinking about it made her shudder.

She gathered her composure, and tried again. She had to release her hatred of the Dark man, or risk becoming dark herself. She considered his actions, and where only minutes ago she couldn't help but to harbor resentment, now she let herself feel compassion for him. For all that he looked and sounded like an adult, his motivations were all too obviously coming from his prematurely precocious child's mind. The world was a game of black and white to him, and he'd chosen to play the black.

Even that choice could be forgiven him. He'd been dying, and the darkness had been his only lifeline. Her mind showed her again the boy's tear-streaked face, dusty and pain-filled as he begged forgiveness at that last moment. She couldn't hate him for that. Deep inside, he was still human, and not totally evil.

Robert's actions were self-justified, a sort of TV-Style Justice. He hadn't been nearly as bad as he could have been. She imagined someone like Hitler with the Rod, and knew that it could have been much, much, worse.

She would have to remember what kind of mind and soul really lay inside that god-like body. She'd have to endure his torments until his experiences and judgment caught up to his outer form. It was the only thing she could do and still keep her pride. One day she would allow herself an "I told you so", as she had faith that she someday would get through to him.

She'd be his teacher of compassion, fair play, and Justice. It was either that, or give into the Darkness, and she wasn't about to surrender to it now. It would never be as bad as these first times had been, and she knew she could bear the burden.

* * *

He called her to him earlier in the day than yesterday, perhaps hoping to catch her before she'd cleared herself. He had no such luck, and he frowned at her as she appeared before the throne, glowing white and totally nude. The room had a lot of other people in it, today, and she covered herself with her hands as best she could.

A round of laughter greeted her attempt at modesty. The pile of golden cushions lay near her at the foot of the dais, and the slut-cat writhed on them, nude and sweaty, hands busy playing with herself.

"Oh, Rebecca?" Robert called sweetly from his throne. She looked up at him with a carefully neutral expression. "I give you a choice. Go down there and help my Kitten get off, or you and I will do a repeat of yesterday's... performance, right here in front of everyone."

She hesitated, dreading another session of sodomy with the big man, this time with witnesses to her shame. On the other hand... she looked on the publicly masturbating woman-cat with contempt. To be forced to perform lesbian acts with her was distasteful, but undoubtedly not as painful as the other alternative. She sighed and let her hands drop to her sides.

Whistles of appreciation for her bared body were given by the crowd as she approached the cushions. As she got near Kitten, she could feel the darkness that coiled in her beneath her red fur. Her white glow pulsed in response to it. Kitten had embraced the dark power, and it had become a part of her.

"Go on, Rebecca," the Dark man urged. "Unless you'd rather..." he half rose to his feet, and reached for his belt. She shook her head and kneeled on the cushions besides her 'partner'.

"What do you want me to do?" she whispered to him, knowing that he could hear her words.

"What she tells you to do," his rich voice said only to her.

Rebecca looked at Kitten, who seemed to be enjoying the situation, and the power Robert had given her over the collared girl. "Eat me," the feline female said. "Get down here and lick my wet pussy, bitch. You're my little sex toy for today."

The Silver haired woman reluctantly laid on the cushions between Kitten's legs and looked at her sex, feeling her gorge rise. Showing her flexibility, Kitten sat up and grabbed Rebecca's head, pressing her mouth to her cunt. The cat's claws dug in a little to her scalp. "I said, lick me!" she growled. Her unwilling partner opened her mouth and began to lick.

Kitten kept her there until she had several intense orgasms, and then dragged her up besides her to french with Rebecca, and to play with the pale woman's breasts. She pulled Rebecca's hands onto her own fur-covered breasts. Kitten rubbed her mound on the younger girl's legs, and came again.

Someone in the crowd remarked on Kitten's insatiability. Robert replied that he should have named her 'Bunny'. "Because she keeps going and going...[*]" His joke got another round of laughter. He addressed the players, "Don't be stingy, Kitten," he said. "Let her come, too."

Kitten Pressed Rebecca on her back, and climbed over on top of her, grinding her mons on Rebecca's face, and beginning to lick Rebecca's cunt. Rebecca had been warming slowly through this ordeal, responding to the sex charged atmosphere, and the knowledge that she was being watched by Robert's court full of lackeys.

She began to moan as she continued to lick Kitten's insistent pussy. The fuzzy tongue on her slit was giving her incredible buzzes of pleasure, and she found herself eagerly reciprocating. Her orgasm took her by surprise, and she gave a muffled cry from it, but not daring to stop.

"That white haired girl takes a while to heat up, but when you get her going..." someone said.

"Exactly," Robert said. "She becomes one hot little fuck." He frowned a little, "I'll break her of those pesky morals of hers, one of these days."

Kitten's tail lashed Rebecca on to greater efforts. The woman-cat increased her own tongue movements to a frantic rate. Rebecca came again, and Kitten exploded in a thunderous orgasm, collapsing on top of Rebecca, unconscious.

Rebecca pushed her off, and crawled away from the furry female. She wiped her hand over her face, wiping it clear of the other woman's juices. Robert called to her, "Come to me, Rebecca."

She shakily moved up to the dais and started to head to her cushion besides the throne. She paused when she realized it wasn't there, but planted between Robert's feet. As her eyes moved up from the cushion to his face, she stopped at his crotch, where his long bared cock awaited her. Laughter rose from the crowd once more at her dismayed expression, especially loud from a big man, with a steel grey crew cut.

Her eyes pleaded with him, but his were stern and determined to win this service from her. "I believe you've heard this once today, Rebecca, but, 'lick me'." He reached out his hand, and pulled her to the cushion. He pushed her down to her knees, and drew her head to his throbbing member. "Blow me, babe!" he ordered.

Rebecca reluctantly opened her mouth, and Robert pushed her head down on him, so that his cock slipped inside. His penis didn't taste nearly as bad as she'd thought it would. His big hand spread over her head, and he began gently pumping her mouth on his cock, taking her last virgin hole.

"Suck it," he rumbled, "and move your tongue over it." She drooled around his shaft as she tried to comply with his demands, for fear he would bugger her again. His slick tool pushed ever deeper as the back of her throat, as he tried to force her to swallow all of him. With every push, she took more of him, until her nose was burying itself in the wiry hair of his bush.

She had to gulp air with her nose between thrusts. His cock was almost blocking off her windpipe, from the depths of its penetration of her throat. He slipped a leg between hers and rubbed it on her mound. She couldn't help herself, and began to grind her cunt lewdly on his leg as she bobbed on his prick faster and faster at his urging.

"Come on, Rebecca," he said. "Just a little more now, and you'll drink my cum. I want you to feel my sperm pouring down into your stomach. You want that too, now, don't you."

She moaned around him. Part of her was anticipating his release, knowing that she would climax on him, as well. The rest of her just wanted it to be over with, so she could breath again, and could crawl away from all the leering eyes on her.

He groaned, and pushed her head down, hard. Her mouth and throat felt his pulses as he fired his semen down her throat. The friction of her clit rubbing on against her leg caused her to reach another orgasm as well.

Before he was finished cuming, he pulled out of her partway and let his last spurts fill her mouth, so she could taste him. She made a face, but she sucked in wind hard, as she panted from the face-fucking, and the orgasm.

"Swallow it," he ordered, as he let her pull her mouth away. She did, grimacing as his musky seed slid down her throat. He smiled down at her, pleased, leaning forward to grope her nude, unresisting body. He'd been in her every hole now, and still he hadn't defeated her will. He had no idea that she'd turn out to be so much fun to keep around, despite her stubbornness.

"Keep your pride," he said quietly to her, "if you can. I enjoy you so much more, when I can see the fire in your eyes." She frowned at him, but then looked away. He stroked her face with uncharacteristic tenderness.

He sighed, and then said to the rowdy onlookers, "I'm afraid that I have some important business today, so you all will have to clear out. Sorry, but so much for the day's entertainment." He looked at the big gray haired man. "See to it, Titan."

Disappointed groans greeted his words, but the big Power threatened to break any laggers in two, and they slowly filed out. Titan looked back towards his boss, but Robert gestured for him to leave as well.

"Good man, Titan," he said when the man finally left, "but a little thick between the ears." He waved at Kitten, and the sleeping woman was sent to his quarters along with her sea of cushions.

"Now for you, sweet Rebecca." He picked her up and held her gently on his lap, curled against him, until she stopped shuddering, and roused enough to glare at him.

"Now, now," he said softly, as he let her go. "You did a good performance today. You were aware that your prudery was one of your failings? I think I've given you a good start at dealing with it." She pushed away, and tried to stand up. He caught her and supported her with a steady arm until she regained her balance.

"I'd like you stay for my meetings," he said. "I'll clean us both up for it. But this time I leave it to you, in reward for your cooperation. You may leave if you want to."

"I would prefer to stay," she said quietly, not wanting to return to the dungeons just yet. He flared with power, and she was wearing a pale aqua blouse, and a deep green skirt. Her hair, make up, and everything else was done perfectly.

She sat back elegantly on the cushion besides the throne. He spruced up his own garb as well, and neglected to connect the thin black chain to her matching collar. She arched a pale eyebrow, noting that obviously he wanted to present a clean image.

"Send in the General!" he ordered. A disarmed four star General of the United States Army swaggered to the throne room with his aide, snapping to a precise halt at the forward point of the floor star at the foot of the dais. He didn't salute.

"Mr. Black," he said, with the barest hint of disdain.

"General Stark," Robert said, with a frown. "What is it that you have come to ask of me?"

"You can start by telling me just what the hell do you think you are doing?" the General snapped. "You are a citizen of the United States of America. You cannot just decide to start your own country, just because our great nation is in some difficulties. And..."

"'Great nation'?" Robert said. "What a joke. Tell me General, how long do you think you can keep your troops from deserting when their pay is two months in arrears, and getting more so all the time. There *IS* no United States. There hasn't been in months. You might be able to keep them for a while, under the National Emergency powers you were given before the end. You know, the one that gives you the right to order summary executions for desertion, but even that one won't last forever." General Stark turned red with anger as Robert spoke.

"The General isn't used to being interrupted," the aide, Lieutenant Jenners said.

"I don't really care, Lieutenant," Robert said. "This is my place of power, not his army camp, and he'll treat me with due courtesy if he wishes me to courteous in return."

"Why you pup!" the General shouted. "I demand to know where you've been getting the supplies you're been throwing around. If you've been breaking into Federal storehouses, I'll have you hung as a traitor under the Martial Law!"

"I'm already hung quite well enough already, thank you," Robert said. "So that's what this visit is all about. The Feds are keeping stores of supplies, while the nation's citizens are starving. Somehow I'm not surprised. I'll have to find out where the nearest stores are, in order to properly distribute the government largesse back to the people who paid for it. Thank you very much for your information, General."

"I'm warning you, Black," the General snarled. "I have my eye on you now, and I know what kind of terrorist[**] you really are. I'm going to mobilized my command to get this region under control."

"On the contrary, General," Robert said, "I'm warning you. The only law in my territory, is _mine_. Bring your troops into my lands, and be prepared to lose them."

"I've seen your so called 'Black Legion'," the General sneered openly, "and I'm not impressed."

"Nor am I impressed with you, Stark," Robert said. "Now clear out of my Palace, before I have you thrown out as a nuisance."

The white faced General reached for his empty pistol holster. "You were lucky this time, Mister. Next will be different."

"That's right, General," Robert said. "Next time one of us will be dead."

The General nodded grimly, and stalked out, trailed by his aide, who shot an unreadable look at them over his shoulder.

"Well," Robert said to Rebecca. That was unpleasant. I notice that you didn't say anything. Intimidated by him?"

"You know better," she said, and smiled a little. "It takes more than a loud mouthed jerk to intimidate me. And besides, you had things well in hand."

He smiled, recognizing the jab, "Yes I did, didn't I. Oh well. Next victim." He projected towards the entrance; "Send in the Governor," he called.

The Governor of the State of Iowa came in, obviously puzzled as to where such a grand structure had come to be in a tiny town of this backwater county, far from the State's Capitol. "Why, this is magnificent," he said. "Can't think why I haven't seen this building before."

"It's new, Governor Miller," Robert said. "My own design, do you like it?"

"It's a little...dark, Mr.Black. But beautifully made, for all that," the Governor said.

"I like things 'Dark', Governor," Robert said smiling. "But, onto the matter at hand. How may I help you?"

"I, um, feel a little strange to have to come here and ask you this, but... your State needs your help." the Governor said.

"What kind of help, Governor?" Robert said, not inclined to make things easy on the politician.

"The State desperately needs security forces, and humanitarian aid," Miller said. "I was told that you might be able to provide them. I see that you have quite the... financial empire, including your own... company script which you redeem for supplies. Ingenious."

"Don't be delicate, sir," Robert said. "What you mean is that I'm busily creating my own Nation, with its own currency, backed with goods. Why can't you call up the National Guard, or the Reserves?"

"Because that damned National Emergency Act the Senate passed just before the government shut down, Federalized them, putting them under Regular Military command," the Governor said, bitterly. "They are being utilized to protect Federal Properties, like military bases, and secure facilities."

"In other words, the Feds have left the state governments high and dry, and are out to cover their own asses, right?" Robert said. At the Governor's slow nod, he said, "My security forces won't come free, but we can arrange the payment later. They are not to be used to protect the monument collection in Des Moines, but to provide basic peacekeeping for all of Iowa's citizens."

Robert continued, "Also I will be happy to supply free humanitarian aid, as long as *my* people control the distribution. I will not tolerate any of it lining the pockets of greedy bureaucrats and politicos while a single common citizen goes without."

"I understand," the Governor said. "What kind of payment were you considering? I'm sure you're aware the State is broke?"

"I imagine so," Robert said wryly. "But as U.S. currency means nothing to me, I will be paid in land and property when the time comes. As someone once said, 'Son, Economies collapse. Nations rise and fall. People are no *Damned* good, but they need land, and they'll pay through the nose to get it. Remember, my father told me; LAND.'"***

Rebecca snorted, "You misquoted." Robert shrugged at her.

"It won't be very long, Governor," he continued, "before I ask you to step down anyway, and give me the state, but I respect the fact that you thought enough of the people to come and ask me this."

"You realize that I can't just abdicate to you," the Governor said uncomfortably, his face pale. "I must serve the people who elected me."

"I know that," Robert said, with quiet menace, "Which is why I will give you no other choice. To use your analogy, a company with no money goes bankrupt, and if they have no credit, they are subject to hostile takeovers. Just *how* hostile it is, will be entirely up to you. Have a good day, Governor."

Stunned, the Governor walked out. Rebecca said, "A little hard on him, weren't you? He came in asking, not demanding?"

"Hey, I didn't vote for him," Robert said. "If he's coming to ask for a handout, just like any bum off the street, I'm going to let him know what it's going to cost him. I'm not going to sugarcoat the cold, hard facts for him, or the other Governors that I'm selling my materials to."

"I know," she said. "He thought you were just another petty self-styled lordling, and didn't think he would have to offer you anything more than worthless I.O.U.'s. You have surprised him greatly, and now he takes you very seriously."

"As it should be," he said to her. "Send in Don Corello," he called. Several men in expensive suits entered the room, trying not to gawk at the Imperial decor. Robert began without preliminaries, "The gentleman who just left was put off when I spoke to him bluntly. May I assume that you'd prefer plain speaking?"

The grizzled haired leader indicated his affirmative, and Robert went on. "I can't resist the impulse to say that I'm going to make *you* an offer that you can't afford to refuse. To it in your terms, I've got the greatest racket, ever. As long as you acknowledge me as the boss, I'll cut you in. Resist me and I'll utterly destroy you. You've heard what I'm capable of, I'm sure? And unlike General Stark, I hope that you believe my reputation."

The leader nodded, and said, "Alright, what do you want from us? You asked for this meeting," The Don said.

"I'm assuming that you have an 'In' with the Illinois State Government in Springfield?" Robert said. "Then, I'm going to want you to help me take it over. By the end of the week, I will be master of the four states nearest my Palace; Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. If you can get me the surrender of your state without a fuss, I'll make you, Don Corello, the Administrator of the State, under me.

“But,” he admonished his erstwhile partners in power. "cross me and I'll crush you, replacing you and your organization with people I can trust," Robert said. "I'm working on a legal code that I want equally enforced, and that I expect you to follow. Unlike the present authorities, I'll *know* when you break them, and I can't be bought or killed. You're stuck with me."

"We hear that you're going to legalize all of our rackets. How are we going to make any money off of them?" the Don asked.

"Vice, like the poor, will always be with us," Robert answered. "The problem is in how you define them. Think of the money you'll save on bribes and payoffs. If you keep the Pay-outs at a fair percentage, and you don't take too much profit off the top, you'll still do well. Look at the Indian Casinos, Nevada, and Atlantic City." The mafia men were starting to nod.

"From my perspective," Robert said, "I've opened up a whole new lucrative markets for your 'business', and given you a leg up on any competitors there might be out there. Use your imagination, fellows; you are already strong in this market, and now you can openly and legally pursue it. Give me Illinois as a gesture of your good faith, or I will go in and take it, and treat you like everyone else."

"You want it by Saturday?" the Don asked. Robert nodded. "Ok, we'll see if we can do it. There isn't anything certain in this world."

"Good enough," Robert said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have more business to attend to." The mafia leaders left, talking excitedly about the possibilities.

Rebecca shook her head in amazement. At turns, he had been firm, diplomatic, and even cajoling during these talks, and they were always at his pace. He was such a complex personality, wrapped around the soul of a young boy.

Robert flashed a smile at her, and squeezed her nearest breast. She sighed, thinking that the personality was also wrapped around a set of over active adolescent hormones, without the mature judgement to go with the adult form they resided in.

She jumped a bit when he suddenly rose to his feet and walked down to the floor. "Jerry Conners!" he said with a smile, shaking hands with the lean young man who'd come in. "Good to see you back."

The brown haired man smiled back. "You were true to your word, Sir. Your supplies and militia were in Winneshiek County yesterday -- I checked. They said they couldn't come to my town unless we signed the governance agreement, so my town's mayor and the city council asked me to bring this to you. Your aide thought to give me a copy of the contract when I was here last."

The document he gave to Robert had the Black Rook Administration Imprint, and the Imperial Flag symbol; the blue star, on a gold oval, over a rectangular black background, both on the cover page.

"Thank you for bringing this," Robert said, seriously. "I'd like you to thank your town, too."

Rebecca shook her head again. He'd just threatened a full General, blackmailed his State Governor, and struck a deal with the Mafia. Yet, he showed such pleasure and gratitude at the willing surrender of one small town.

Robert was talking to him. "Have you thought about working for me? I would certainly enjoy it if you joined up with my special forces. I've made contact with some other Powers, and even had some of them join me, so I'm going to get a whole group together."

"It sounds interesting, Sir," Jerry said. "It would be nice to talk to some others who have gone through the 'change' recently, as some have called it."

"Would it surprise you to know there was at least a small potential for this in most of the race?" Robert said.

Rebecca stood, "You didn't!" she said, shocked.

"Oh yes, I did," Robert turned to her. "I activated the various Power genes in the race as a whole the day I... 'changed'.

"You did this?" Jerry said, excited. "Cool! I mean how? Oh, never mind, I love it." For once his thoughts seemed to be racing faster than even his mouth. "I'm in, Sir. I'll be back as soon as I can, after seeing that the food and militia arrives, and I've settled things back home.” With a grin, he blurred out of the room.

"'Bye Blur," Robert said, to a room empty except for the two of them. He turned back to Rebecca. "Ok. I acknowledge that you are my ethical adversary. You acknowledge that I'm physically superior, and that I’m calling the shots. Do you really insist on living in the dungeons?"

"If it's that, or your 'harem', then yes," she said, stubbornly.

"Hmmm," he said. "I thought you'd say that. That must be why I had M… Maggie Black decorate a set of rooms near my quarters in white, pink and blue. You'd better like the colors. She said they were perfect for you."

He laughed at her surprised expression. "Did you forget that I'm almost human?" he said, and pretended to frown at her when she gave him a stunned nod. "Just remember it the next time I fuck you," he said, leering at her body.

"Come on, and I'll show it to you," her head was spinning from his rapid switching of gears, as he snatched her hand and pulled her with him to the Reserved Area, in the sector of the Palace set aside for the needs of the Imperial family and their friends.

Shaking her head, she followed him to the quarters, which were near, as promised, but not part of his large suite. The decor was tasteful and feminine. She thought of the dungeon, and all the dreadful things she'd had to face there. Compared to that, this was heaven. She fought down her pride, and said in a small voice, "I agree to stay here."

"Good," he said. Then he added with a grin, just before he left the room. "Besides, it'll make it a lot easier for me to visit you at night."

She rolled her eyes, and sighed again. A millimeter forward, a million miles backwards. Could she survive the wait for him to grow up? Did she really have the patience after all? Well, at the very least, tonight she had a soft bed, clear water -- and no slither-thing.

* * *

Friday night, a bloodless coup took the cities of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Madison, Wisconsin. Black Towers, signifying the presence of the Imperial Administration, appeared near the two State's Capitol buildings. The current Governors were retained, at least on a temporary basis, to serve as pro-tem Administrators.

In Springfield, Illinois, the State Legislature voted to pass the proposal to capitulate State Sovereignty, and agree to the Dark man's demands. A Black Tower appeared here as well, but the Illinois Governor was evicted from the Capitol Mansion in favor of the new leader of the State Government, Administrator Don Corello.

When Robert rode into Des Moines at the head of his Regiments of Black Legions, the public acclaimed his arrival. He seemed to be very popular in his home State. It didn't take long before Governor Miller's surrender was delivered to him. In appreciation of his dedication to his citizens, Robert left him as acting Administrator, and erected a Black Tower here as well.

Robert knew he couldn't expand so fast he couldn't keep up with the problems with controlling it all. He was moving at just the pace he wanted, and went home feeling satisfied at the week's efforts.

 

To be Continued...

[*]Well, at least that reference still makes sense. =)

[**]Orginally the General said “Pinko-Fascist”, but that reference is _so_ Early Nineties… Terrorist, that’s the ticket these days. You know, when I wrote the General’s rhetoric, it was supposed to be extreme… not so much, now, huh?

[***]This is Luthor’s 'Land' Speech from Chris Reeve’s first Superman Movie.

[Version : Revision C - 1/2015.]


	8. "She Blinded Me With Science!"

_"It's poetry in motion, she turned her tender eyes to me._

_As deep as any ocean, as sweet as any harmony._

_She blinded me with science._

_She blinded **ME** , with science!_

_And failed me in biology..."_

\--Thomas Dolby

 

Robert lounged in his quarters, wearing only a comfortable robe, reading the mail passed to him through the Black Towers. It was the usual mix; hate mail, requests for charity, and the business of his empire. One letter he opened smelled of perfume. He sniffed closer. No, he thought, of a woman wearing perfume.

When he drew out the letter, a photograph fell out. It was a gorgeous blonde woman, nude, wearing only an open white lab coat, and a pair of glasses. She was holding a beaker in one hand, and was obviously a natural blonde.

He stared at the photo for a while, getting a hardon, and called his sister, "Susan, come here, please."

"Yes, Robbie?" she said, playfully, and then saw his erection. She smiled, and said, "Ok, I'll take care of that." She came over to him, kneeling between his legs to suck his cock.

He smiled back at her, and opened up the woman's letter, and began to read it. It said her name was Liz Tyler, a upper class Physics Major, and that she'd been harassed at MIT for paying her tuition at the school with photo shoots for Playboy and Penthouse. She'd been kicked out of the school before it shut down, for 'impropriety'. She listed the issue numbers that she'd appeared in, and he summoned them to enjoy more of her beauty in the spreads.

His cock jumped in Susan's mouth, and he stroked her head in apology. The letter went on to say that Liz had stumbled on an important discovery, before she was suspended, and needed his help to set up a research laboratory. He could make a place where discoveries that were dangerous to the vested powers, or to the old governments, might be researched in safety, for the good of all.

The photo spreads were very nice, and Susan's attentions were expert. Robert's cock pulsed as he came in his sister's eager mouth, and she drank it greedily. She joked with him, "I didn't know that you needed to look at girly mags to get off, with all of us around."

"The girl in this one," he showed her a centerfold, "sent me a letter. She's a physicist student, who thinks I should support important scientific research." He grinned, "It sounds like a worthwhile thing to do."

"Brains *and* a beautiful body?" Susan laughed. "Are you sure you can handle someone like that?" Watching his cock twitch, she said, "I can see that you want to. 'Handle' her, that is. I just hope she knows what she's getting into... or what's going to get into her."

He showed her the picture, "I think that she has a pretty good idea. If not, then she sure as hell should."

* * *

Robert sent for Liz Tyler a few days later. He had set aside living quarters near his, and dedicated a large suite of rooms to be the core of an Imperial Science center, whether or not she stayed on. He put in some basic lab furnishings, but left most of the rooms empty for whatever equipment she'd request.

As usual, silver haired Rebecca was at his side for the official business, while the ruddy-furred Kitten helped him preside over the court's regular debauchery. Despite their public scene on the throne room floor, the two women didn't like each other very much, and tended to avoid each other's company.

Rebecca noticed that he was hurrying through the day's petitioners. "Expecting someone in particular, today?" she asked him quietly, between hearings.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact," he answered, and handed her the letter. His eyes twinkled in amusement as she read it. When she looked up, puzzled by his smile, he handed her the photo that had come with it. She frowned at him.

"Oh, of course you couldn't possibly hear her out for any humanitarian reasons," she said, sarcastically. "You had to have a prurient motive in mind."

"Absolutely, my dear," he chuckled softly. "She's looking for a kind of academic charity. And you know that I always make someone 'pay' for what they get for free."

"Well, she did aim below the belt," Rebecca said. "And on you that's such a big target..."

He smiled at her with a raised eyebrow, as a blonde woman came into the throne room. She wore a classy looking blue skirt ensemble, and carried a large leather briefcase.

Robert rose from the throne and said, "Good day, Miss Tyler. If you'll take a seat at the conference table to your left..." he indicated a large but little used table to the left side of the room. He turned to the address the court observers, "This is the last meeting of the day, and it will not be open to the public. Please clear the court."

He hadn't addressed Rebecca, so she rose and accompanied him from the dais, after tugging a moment at the black chain firmly attaching her black collar to the massive sapphire throne. "Robert...," she said, annoyed. She'd forgotten he's chained her today.

He gave her a devilish grin, but relented and released her. He was more interested in another female right now. He sat at the head of the table in an ornate and massive chair, and watched as Liz brought out some papers and diagrams about her research.

"What is your research about, Miss Tyler?" he asked, looking at the way her body moved under that suit.

"I was doing research for a paper about academic fraud, and I found anomalies in the cold fusion fiasco.* It appeared that after they announced it, a great deal of money and effort had been spent to squash any further lines of investigation on the subject, before they could exhaust all possibilities. If there was really nothing to it, why bother?" she asked them. "I looked at the information, because atomic particles are a place where physics and chemistry intersect. Mariko, a friend and a chem major, thought that cold fusion had been disproved, butwhen I showed her what had been missed, she agreed with me. We snuck into the Chem labs at night, working with the variations, getting interesting results until we stumbled on a set up that would produce power, and one time, it produced more power than the initial energy that we'd used to start up the reaction." She pulled out a diagram that meant nothing to Robert or Rebecca.

Liz tapped the page, "It was enough to show there was merit to the idea. Our notes during this didn't mention me, because only she had official access to the chem labs. She took a copy of the notes to the Chem department's chair to show him what we'd found. She had a demonstration set up, the information that I'd uncovered, and the notes concerning our research."

Her voice choked up. "I never saw her again. Through a mutual friend, we were told Mariko had left the school. That scared me. Shortly after that, I was bounced from the school for 'academic impropriety'. I was being punished for giving her the initial information. They didn't know that I'd been involved in the experiments, luckily for me. I mailed my copy of the papers home, with instructions to put them in the family safe. This is a copy of those documents."

She looked down for a moment. "I wish I knew if she was alright. Mariko was a good friend, with fascinating ideas about crystalline computer components."

Robert said, "Think about her, please. I need you to visualize her," he closed his eyes, his brows furling. He pulsed with darkness, the pulses reflecting in the dark Rod that he'd left standing by the throne. Rebecca's white glow rose in response to it.

"She's alive," he said, his voice toneless with intense concentration. "Stop that, Rebecca, you're distracting me." Rebecca tried to dim her white energy. He stood, and held up his arms, and a battered girl of oriental decent appeared in them.

"Mariko!" Liz said. Rebecca reached to hold her hand, and to stop her from interferring with Robert's support.

"Excuse me," he said. "I'll take her to the Infirmary in the Royal sector. She'll be alright, Liz." He carried her easily out of the room, and returned shortly.

"The Doctors said she'd been roughed up pretty bad," he told Liz, "but she should recover in time. I promise you she'll be well cared for."

"I'm very glad to hear that," Liz said.

"I was happy to do it," he said. "That sort of thing really pisses me off. But that has nothing to do with my official interest in you. On a more personal note," he said with a grin, flipping her naughty photograph on the table on top of a meticulously drawn diagram, "I think I have a real good idea of what you can do for me." He winked.

Liz blushed, but pushed it back towards him. "And your official interest?" she said.

"To tell you the truth, Liz," he said, "if you want my empire to support your research, you'll have to show me what it is you want to accomplish."

"I understand, sir, as I explained in my letter, and you can see in these papers..."

"I'm afraid I'm not a technically minded person, Miss Tyler," Robert said. "Can you demonstrate the project for us? I can give you the materials, and I've already set aside rooms for a science center." He brought them to the sparsely furnished labs. "So tell me, why is room temperature fusion important to the empire?"

"Ideally," she said, "when the right configuration is found, this discovery could make a self sustaining source of power with a small investment of start-up power, and common supplies. I will need 5 gallons of purified distilled water, and large tanks of gaseous oxygen, and hydrogen."

Robert created what she needed, as well as the polarizing bell jar, the filters, and the more esoteric gadgets she described to him. Liz assembled the apparatus, filling the bell jar's reservoir with the water and hooking up the gas tanks.

"If you put oxygen and hydrogen gas together," she continued, "it doesn't automatically become water. We use a precise electrical charge to start a low-level fusion reaction, which basically creates water molecules. The electrical energy gathered is routed to a capacitor, while the heat by-product is used to split the water back to its two gaseous states." Liz finished setting up the equipment.

"This configuration is inefficient right now," she warned. "The one time we got a positive result, we used 100 kilowatts to initiate the experiment, and it produced 110 kilowatts before it went unstable and the fusion reaction collapsed. It doesn't produce hard radiation, so no extra protection is necessary," she put a small Geiger counter near the set up, and gave them each dark goggles. "The reaction creates a bright flare of light until the bell jar polarizes, so please look away for awhile." She put on her goggles, and started the experiment.

Robert looked anyway, with the goggles still in his hand. He saw an intense point of light form at the critical point where the fusion was occurring, and saw the jar darken so the flare was tolerable. He checked the dial that had recorded the power investment, and watched the meter of energy generated begin to move, but very slowly. At no time did the Geiger counter react to more than background radiation.

"All the world was abuzz at the mere notion that fusion reactions could exist without huge facilities and shielding. In the old America, power generation was a vast money making business. It threatened those in that business to think with some water and bottled gases, a family might not need their corporate electrical lifeline."

She smiled at them, "By our standards, even if the project came within twenty percent of the investment, it was a success. We did that pretty consistently with this configuration, unless we did something wrong with the set up. To have it break even is wonderful, and we had that happen a few times. To actually see a gain over the investment was nothing short of a miracle."

She said, "It told us that with enough work with the configurations, we could hope to find one that yielded an overage consistently, and if we could store the extra generated power, we could use it to start more reactions. Remember though, there are no guarantees. We may never get this to work entirely right."

She turned to him, her eyes shining. "But think about it, sir," she said to him. "The initial investment can be free energy, from the wind, sun, or even manual cranking, just so there's enough charge to begin the reaction. We might someday get it to be permanently self-sustaining. There would be free energy for all. We could make bigger versions that would power whole cities, and give everyone their own generator, to take wherever they go."

She looked at both of them, "That is why this research is important to the people of the world, not just your empire. But you could be the one to free people from worry about having power. It will be a new era of living, and the bastards wanted to keep the possibility of it as their secret, so they could continue milking the public."

Robert mused to himself, "*Real* mobile homes. Fully electrical vehicles. Free public power grids, just like today's road systems. I like it," he said. "You've got the lab. You and your friend can stay here and research this. You tell me what you need, and I'll see that you get it... Chief Researcher. Your first order of business is to get this thing stable."

"Just like that?" she said. "Just turn science over on its ear? Alright," she laughed.

"You haven't had the other part of your 'interview' yet. If you'll excuse us, Rebecca, Liz and I have an appointment to keep... in my bedroom." He winked broadly.

"Now you're in trouble," Rebecca said to her, and then hesitated. "Wait, Robert."

Robert frowned at her. Rebecca turned to the young scientist. "Can you leave the experiment?" she asked. "When it destablizes, does it need any attention?"

"Yes and no," Liz answered. "The experiment will run for hours, usually. We often left it to eat. It will continue charging the capacitor while it runs, and then it will just stop. It's safe to leave unattended here, providing the bell jar is of top quality." She looked at Robert, who had provided it.

Robert nodded, and said, "Thanks, Rebecca, for thinking about the safety of the Palace."

"Seems to be my job," she said. "Thinking of things that you overlook."

"Sounds like a good job description to me, Rebecca White," he said. "You're hired. Just don't forget the personal services that come with that job."

"Yes, I know," she said, with a slightly resigned tone, and a faint frown.

He gave her a nod, and a look that acknowledged that their adversarial relationship still existed between them, despite what surface cooperation they appeared to give each other. For now it wasn't important for either of them to convert the other, as long as they were working for the same goals. He led Liz out of the labs.

Robert took Liz by the arm, and led her to his master bedroom. He had an Emperor sized bed, and he brought her to it, as he dropped his blue cloak. She hesitated, and said, "You're serious, aren't you? You'd lay me down and do me without another word. Well, if that's the way it's going to be..." She reached for the buttons of her blouse.

"Wait," he said. He sat on the bed, and patted the cover next to him, inviting her to sit. Several weeks ago, he would have just done her the way she'd said, without a second thought. But several weeks ago, he hadn't met Rebecca. It was just beginning to dawn on him that not all women found his charms irresistible. He could just turn up his seduction aura, and erase all her doubts. She wasn't protected from his power the way his opposite was.

But he considered, why did he want Liz to stay? He answered himself, 'Because of her brain. If you do it like this, she'll stay long enough for the fusion project to be done, and her friend to be healed, and then she'll want to leave. To get away from the man who had used her; to get away from you.'

Needing a woman for something other than her hot, wet cunt was a bit foreign to him, but it was the reason he'd begun to back off of Rebecca a little. If he did nothing but abuse her, she wouldn't share her insights with him. It wasn't good people management to be treating his important people like slaves. Why would they want to give their best efforts for him?

Those methods had worked with Mom, Susan and Traci, but he hadn't needed their mental input in his governance. Also he'd found something that each of them had badly wanted, so he'd probably been lucky with them.

He thought of comic book villains, who for fear of competitors, surrounded themselves with incompetents and fools and wondered why their grandiose plans never succeeded.

Dimly it occurred to him... to get something from someone willingly, he first had to give something of himself. Sometimes, what he might have to give was simple respect, or patience, or even a sympathetic ear. After all, robots didn't usually excel with their minds, they just did what they were programmed. If the programmer was unsure of the course, the robots couldn't volunteer a solution.

He would have to do it like Star Trek. When the Captain didn't know what to do, he asked for opinions, and then, he made the decision.

All of these thoughts went flashing through him in moments, while Liz sat and waited for him to speak. "I assumed from the photo that you sent with the letter," he began, "that you knew that I was a very sensual man, and that you were offering your... affections for a chance to be heard by me."

"I sent the letter as a carrot," she said, "and if you couldn't see the worth of the scientific proposal, the photo was a way of ensuring that you'd at least hear me out. I didn't mean for it to be a proposal."

"I didn't hear your pitch because of the letter, Liz," he said. "That's just the way I took it. Do you mean to tell me that you didn't foresee the possibility that I would take it that way?"

She looked away. "Now that I know that you'll take me seriously, that you understand the good the project will do, I didn't want you to take me as a slut." He could see a tear on her cheek. "I got no end of harassment at MIT for posing for tuition money. The first thing anyone said to me when I got a decent grade was that I must have slept with the teacher. If I slept with you now, no-one will think that I earned the position that you offered."

"Nonsense," he said. "Why would anyone think your personal life had anything to do with your job? I don't sleep with everyone in a position of responsibility here. Under my rule, people are judged by the results they get, not on their private lives." He smiled ruefully. "That's a probably a good thing," he said. "I'm not sure that my private life could stand up to a close examination." To his surprise, the admission seemed to ease her mind.

He took her hand. "You are fighting an image that others had of you as a bad girl, and you don't think you deserve it. I *know* that I'm a bad boy," he said with a wicked grin. "And I'd like to prove it to you." He pulled off his shirt, and showed her his bare chest. He was lucky again, he thought, she liked chest hair. She reached over and ran a finger through the soft black hairs covering his pecs.

Her eyes drifted down his firm torso to his leather clad thighs, noticing the large bulge straining at his crotch. She felt less threatened by him, all of a sudden. He didn't seem to be saying anymore, 'now just lay down and we'll fuck,' but instead, 'look at me, don't you want to?' She wasn't sure that she didn't.

"Personally," he said, with a smile, "I don't think there's anything wrong with being a 'bad girl', but I'm willing to believe that you're good, or at least that you're good at it."

"Oh, you're such a wicked man," she said, but she was smiling, too. He pulled off his boots, then rose and stood in front of her, fighting his urge to 'encourage' her with his powers. He was letting her chose for herself, but he wasn't above strutting his stuff before her. His eyes looked intensely into hers, communicating his desire to her.

"Don't move," she said as she stood in front of him. She ran her fingers over his shoulders, and down his muscled arms, briefly clasping his large, square hands. Her fingers moved back up his arms, brushing his shoulders again. She began dragging her fingernails lightly through the forest of dark hairs on his chest. He gasped when she dragged them gently over his dark nipples.

Her nails traced patterns as they made their way to the center of his chest, and then stroked down over his ribs, and over his hard belly. She detoured to draw lazy circles around his navel, watching his chest heave with his ragged breathing, and his muscles quiver from repressed need.

Her fingers went down until they encountered his belt, and then she suddenly ran them over the front of his black leather pants, rubbing hard over the taut bulge of his restrained erection. She cupped her hand over his maleness, squeezing slightly. The other went to his neck, to draw his dark maned head down to hers, raising her mouth for his hungry kiss.

The touch of their lips was electric for both of them. He groaned from his need to crush her to him. "Hold me," she said, and his strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight against him. His hands went to her ass, grinding her mound against his hard, imprisoned cock.

"I want you," he said, his tone darkened by the urgency of his lust.

"I know," she whispered softly, and he could feel her shiver. She broke free of his grasp, and stepped away from him.

His face went white from shock, and then flushed red with hot rage. His hands balled into fists, and he stepped towards her in raw threat, dark intent in his fierce eyes.

"Please listen to me," she forestalled him. She laid a trembling delicate hand on his chest. "I want you, Robert. But I would only feel safe with you, if I can say 'No'. Can you see how that would relieve my fears?"

"You're teasing me!" he ground out through clenched teeth.

"A little," she admitted. "But a big man like you should be able to take a bit of teasing. It can make things more fun in the end." She looked more than a little intimidated by his reaction.

He closed his eyes, ignoring the impulses of his throbbing cock, and did a brutal evaluation of the future of his empire if he simply raped her, right now, as he so badly wanted to do.

What his powers showed him was a world considerably diminished. The product of genius would be withheld from him, and his citizens. Powerful inventions would be hoarded up, and used against him directly, or in random terrorist acts.

The image of children dying in revenge of his unchecked cruelty struck him like a blow. For all his Darkness, he was trying to be a good leader. He was striving to create a world he would have wanted to live in, as Robbie. That world needed him to be the protector of its children.

He'd already been fighting his Darkness, he realized. Not because he wished to be Good, but because unrestrained Evil would be bad for the only thing that he truly cared about anymore... his Empire. Without his self-restraint, he would have turned the people of the whole world into his devoted slaves. He had thought seriously about doing just that, and it was still only a thought away.

His black fire still sheathed him like a cloak, and he looked deep into her soul, and saw what she was really wanting. She was afraid of him; afraid of his sordid reputation, and of his strange powers. She was strongly attracted to him, though, and she was trying to find a way to feel safe being with him, but on her terms.

She was testing him, and though she didn't know it, his resolve to be a fair Emperor, trying to build a better world was also being tested. The realization that if he just forced people to do his will, they became no more than robots when what he really wanted were friends and companions, came to him again.

If he raped her, abusing her physically, he failed the test. He didn't want to admit it, but he would also fail if he spurned her now, sending her away for not capitulating to his desires. That would be mental cruelty. The only course that benefitted his chosen future, was the one that came hardest to him; one of respect.

He had to acknowledge her as a person, with her own feelings and needs apart from him. And, grant her the dignity to exercise them without undue coercion on his part. He sighed, because it didn't make it any easier on him to know that Rebecca would approve.

His grim expression softened. "Elizabeth Tyler," he said formally, "You always have the right to say 'No' to me," he declared. His power flared again around him, as he made sure that he would remember his Oath.

She frowned at the melodramatics, "Don't joke with me," she said, misinterpreting his formal phrasing as sarcasm.

"I'm not," he said gently. He stepped closer and took hold of her hand, letting her feel in her bones that he spoke the truth, and to see it show in his eyes.

She smiled, and her fears faded. She started hurriedly undo the buttons of her blouse, but he was far too impatient to wait that long. With a black flare, they were nude, and he laid her down on his soft bed.

She had felt him before through his pants, but now she got a look at the tool he'd be using on her, and she was suitably impressed. His hands roamed over her, and his mouth fastened on one of her pale nipples. His hands were hot on her body, rubbing, squeezing, and touching all over. His mouth was insistent, licking and sucking her, even nibbling a little. He rubbed his hard cock against her, while his fingers found her wet clit.

She'd been right, he realized, while their bodies clenched together urgently. The frustration he'd felt earlier made it feel so much better when he finally slipped his meat into her wet and willing cunt. Ever since he'd taken the Rod, he hadn't had a desire that wasn't swiftly gratified. The novelty of frustration only heightened the pleasure he felt as he stroked inside of her.

Her mouth found his, and they kissed for so long she gasped when they stopped. His hands held his bulk above her, while her fingers scratched onto his back. She came a little, and she dug in with her nails. Robert thought it was a good thing that he was mostly invulnerable, or his back would be a bloody mess in the morning. She screamed a little in pleasure, and wrapped her legs around his hips, striving for an even deeper penetration.

As his hard cock brought her to a new series of strong orgasms, he had a sudden inspiration. "What do you think about the symbology of a Copper Tower, Minister of Science?" he asked, "I think it would be a good symbol of your Ministry."

She tried to focus on him with blurred eyes, still panting from her ecstasy. "I don't believe it," she gasped. "Don't you ever think about anything but your job?" She moaned as he changed his rhythm to a faster tempo.

"Only when I'm thinking about sex," he said, grinning.

"Then get down here, and start concentrating on me," she hissed. "I'll give you an opinion about work later."

"You have a deal, woman," he said, and started using all of his skills to insure that she was having the best fuck of her life. It was going to be a long night, he knew, and the best was yet to come.

 

To be Continued...

[*]It was in all the papers in the late Eighties… check Wikipedia for details.

[Version: Revision C - 1/2015.]


	9. "A little Power is a Dangerous Thing."

Rebecca waited in Robert's comfortable study, wrestling with her confusion. Liz hadn't been added to his bevy of brain-dead love slaves in his so-called 'harem'. And when she and Liz had talked this morning, the pretty scientist hadn't acted as if she had been raped, as Rebecca had in her first 'encounter' with the Dark man. Had the Devil changed his tune? It seemed so, but it was too late for her.

One of the orphans that lived in the Palace, acting as an Imperial Page, had given Rebecca a black rose, and a politely phrased request for her to join him in his study at noon. She'd gotten there at 15 minutes before the hour, to find the usually sealed door wide open, and the room empty.

There were two chairs arranged by the fireplace, and she sat on the marginally smaller blue one, leaving the massive black leather monstrosity for Robert. A minute before noon he strode into the room. His punctuality would have been more impressive if she hadn't have felt him teleport from somewhere else to just outside the room in the hallway.

"Good afternoon, Rebecca," he said to her. She was still holding the dark rose. He was wearing a white rose in the lapel of his black Italian silk suit.

"Hello, Robert," she said. "What is it you wanted to meet me for?"

"This isn't easy for me to say," he said, his tone betraying a faint tension. "I'm asking you to do what you do best, and read between the lines."

"I will try, Robert," she said neutrally.

"I have never said that I know everything," he said, gazing away from her. "And it is... possible, that I have made a mistake concerning you. At times my thinking can be simplistic. I assumed if I dominated you physically, and sexually, that mentally you would be mine as well. I can accept that might not be true. Is it?"

"No, Robert," Rebecca said. "I may do what you say to avoid having a... 'session' with you, but I rarely find myself agreeing with you."

He turned back to her, "It has occurred to me, that I need to respect the people whose intellectual contributions are important to me and my empire. Liz is one of them, and I found that respect can be difficult, but not impossible for me. You are another, and I'm afraid there is already too much 'history' between us for you to ever fully support me."

His control slipped for a moment, and his face took on a haunted mein, reflecting the tension that he lived with every day. "The truth is, Rebecca, that I need you besides me. I need your will to oppose mine. Your input makes me a better leader. Because of this, I'm asking you to put aside our differences when you work with me."

"And in return?" Rebecca said, pushing him.

"And in return..." he said, slowly, "I'll try to respect your individuality, and to remember that you might not like to be sexually used, or even casually groped."

"To use someone, and to respect them, are often contradictory," Rebecca pointed out.

Annoyance flashed over his face, followed by a faint smile. "I know. And that's what I meant, you can make me mad so easily, but you always make me think. Give me your hands," he said. "Please," he added.

She set the rose down, and held out her slender hands to him. Robert took them in his big square hands, looking at the contrast between them. He smiled at her, and touched the black bracelets of her bondage, and dissolved them. He looked at her collar, but left it on her. He wasn't sure he trusted her that much, yet.

"I don't need to bind you, anymore," he said. "But you are still my adversary. You understand."

"I understand that you are threatened by me," she said fearlessly. "But not why you must humiliate me with a sign of slavery."

His jaw worked as he fought down an impulse to snap at her. "Ok. How about this." He touched it, and it softened, turning into a linked serpentine necklace of glossy black metal. There was an odd loop on it, which she knew was the connector to the chain. He had altered the form, but not the function.

"It doesn't help," she said. "I'm still your prisoner."

"But you won't be humiliated anymore, right?" he said.

"Only if you *never* put me in a public scene without my consent, as you did with Kitten," she said. "Promise me that, on your Empire, and I'll accept what you're trying to say for now. But I will wait for the day that you will apologize to me and truly mean it."

"Lotsa luck on that one, babe," he retorted. "But as for the public scenes, I can see your point. On my Empire, and my love of it, I swear never to involve you in a 'scene' in public without first asking for, and receiving your explicit consent. Is that what you wanted?"

"That will do fine, Robert, for now," she said. "But don't think that I'm done working on you."

"Nor I, you, sweety," he said with a grin. "Or haven't you noticed that you can now contemplate sexual acts that before you met me would have put your lily white heart into a flutter. The society you represent is dead and gone, and I mean to drag its descendants away from the guilt and obsession over sex."

"And you go too far," she said. "The only society you represent would have fit in with the rightly infamous court of Caligula. Is that what you want for your empire?"

"Perhaps there's a happy medium there," he allowed. "But it will probably be awhile before we find it."

"Probably," she agreed. "Is that all?"

"Yes," he said. "You can go." She nodded and left the study, leaving behind the black rose. He pulled the white rose from his lapel, and studied its clean perfection. He didn't know what he wanted to see in it, but he felt that symbolized something he was missing.

* * *

A few day later, on a day when Robert wasn't holding court, Rebecca was called to meet his first power team. He'd said they were an interesting group of people, and she had to agree. Rebecca had already seen two of the nine members, the big bruiser named Titan, and the young speedster Jerry both of whom were waiting at the throne room conference table. There were three other men, and four women ready to be introduced.

Robert stood, "For the record, I'm Robert Black. This is my advisor, Rebecca White. Seated are Hank Dodds, known as Titan, and Jerry Conners, known as Blur. I'd like you to introduce yourself, and take your seat. Alphabetical is ok?" He sat, and scarcely waited for a response. "Al-Raji," Robert said.

A blue haired young man about Jerry's age stepped forward. He was of Middle Eastern decent, and wore neat clothes. "My name is Luke," he said in good, but faintly accented English. "I'm a naturalized citizen, my folks moved here when I was a baby.” He touched his azure hair, "I just got this not long ago, when I gained the ability to throw around blue energy bolts, and to fly. I think I would like to be called 'Sapphire'. 'Saf'-'fire', get it?" he grinned and sat.

Robert rolled his eyes. "Uh-huh, I get it. Barrett, you're next."

"My name is Joane," said the red-head with green eyes. Her voice was low and husky, and her chest was quite prominent in comparison to her waist. Her clothes were well made, of subdued colors. "My talent can telepathically link a small group of minds, and for that I am called Lady Web," she sat down as she said this. "It also tells me if others are telling the truth. For instance, 'Sapphire' lied about his real name."

"Mr. Al-Raji?" Robert said, his manner questioning.

"I just turned 18," the young man said defensively. "I hadn't had a chance to change it yet before the courts closed. “I just like 'Luke' better than 'Ali'."

Joane Barrett nodded at his response. "Truth; that you intended to change your name. Half-truth; that you like the name better than the one you were born with."

"Alright," Ali said, sounding harassed. "Truth is, I don't really care, but Americans respond to me better when I use Luke."

"That may have been important in your last position, Ali," Robert said. "But here you are among supporters. Please feel free to be yourself." The young man nodded.

"Fisher," Robert said. "You're next."

"My name is Karen, and I'm an Iroquois Native American." She was young, and very muscular for her slender build. Her brown complexion and raven black hair framed a delicate face that was set off by a severe expression. "My powers make me strong and tough. I also have a set of 'shadow' wings I control when I fly, that I'm told aren't really there. I chose the name Osprey." She sat down.

"Thank you, Karen. Your turn, Miss Jones." Robert said.

"My name is Charity," said the light chocolate colored woman. She was short, but nicely rounded. She spoke in a soft, slow Southern accent. "I won't use a fancy name. All I can do is feel what other people are feeling. I can't tell if a cold person is lying, but most folks get edgy and nervous when they lie, so I can mostly tell when they do. Besides that, I'm not really sure what I'm doing here."

"You'll do fine, Charity, take your seat," Robert said. "Melaui?"

"My name is Tim," the Polynesian boy in the loud tropical shirt said. "My folks came from Fiji originally, but I'm a native born American. I have the power to teleport short distance in my line of sight. Luckily I can carry my clothes and anything I have on me." He smiled. "I wanted to be called 'Prodigal Sorcerer', but Mr. Black wouldn't allow it. He calls me Warp." He sat down.

Robert smiled. "I don't care for your 'Poke' jokes. I thought you needed a short name easy to yell. Frequently. Mr. Peters, if you please?"

"My name is Ezekiel," the quiet spoken black man said, "but everyone calls me Zeke. I couldn't come up with a hero name. But Mr. Black noted that another term for what I do, telekinesis, is Teke. That's what we decided on, since it sounds like my name." He shrugged and rubbed a hand over his bald head. "He said my power makes me valuable to him." He took a seat, and looked as if he wasn't going to say anything more.

"Thank you, Zeke," Robert said. "Mrs. Simmons, you're the last. Introduce yourself, please."

"Hello," said the older graying blonde in a French-influenced accent. "My name is Paris, after my parents favorite city. I have the power to see what is going on elsewhere. Our employer calls me Seeker." The focus of her eyes turned away, gazing at nothing. "You asked me to see what the children are doing in the courtyard, sir. They are playing flag football. The Blue team is winning." She took her seat.

"I have discussed your options with all of you," Robert said. "This group has decided to join my Special Forces team. Ultimately, you report to me, through the team Captain I will appoint. He will direct your actions, under my orders."

He looked at the big man, "Titan, you've been acting as a sort of Sergeant of Arms for me. I know you have experience both in the military and as a mercenary. You understand that not all of them are combatants?" Henry Dodds nodded. "Will you take command of the team, Hank?"

"Yes, sir!" Titan said, and saluted crisply.

"Alright, here are your room assignments, and list of duties. There's also a suggested schedule of drills, but the final form of that is up to your Captain," Robert said. "If you have any problems, bring them to Hank. It's his job to bring your problems to me."

Rebecca shot him a startled look, and then frowned in concern.

"Ok, people," Titan brayed. "Let's get a move on. C'mon,"

The black man Zeke gave him a cool stare, and walked to their quarters without an appearance of hurry. The others didn't make eye contact with the big man.

Rebecca watched them leave, and then turned to Robert.

"What? Obviously you have a problem," Robert said. "So, out with it."

"Have you ever heard of the Open Door Policy?" she asked him. Robert nodded, in response. "It's a way for a subordinate to step around his immediate superior if someone in his chain of command is corrupt. You basically shut that door. If Titan does something they don't like, they can't come to you about it without getting into trouble."

"I don't need them whining to me for every petty grievance," he said, dismissing her concerns.

"What about major grievances?" she said. "There is nothing worse than being trapped into a corrupt chain of command." She fingered her black necklace. "I should know."

Robert smiled, "Hey, corruption is the name of the game, babe. Who ever can get away with doing something, gets it his way."

"You may find, Robert, that some corruption is even more than you can stand," she said. "There are already limits that you've imposed on yourself. Lines you will not cross. So what will you do if you encounter someone who violates those rules?"

"I'll decide that when I get there, Rebecca. And now it's time for my lunch." He walked away from the table, trying to ignore the words she spoke after him.

"I think you'll get there sooner than you wish..."

* * *

Titan returned to the Power quarters later that evening. "Im-fucking-pressive!" he said coming in, ignoring Paris's disapproving frown at his language. "He's been beefing up his army big time. It looks like he's stripped the armories of his whole territories, and drafting the man power to carry them."

He strutted a little. "We're going to have to learn to use our powers well and work as a team, and soon. The Boss has made it clear that I'll suffer if the team isn't up to snuff, and that means you guys will suffer if you don't perform to my standards. I'm not gonna let him down, so you better not let ME down!"

He stared at them all in turn, daring them to contradict him. None of them challenged them. He nodded and went on. "We'll get started in drills first thing in the morning. So hit your bunks and get some sleep, people!" With little hesitation, the varied group of powers went quietly to their rooms.

The only one that paused was Charity, and that was because Titan was leaning on her door, and he wasn't moving. The Southern woman stood in front of him, suddenly feeling a chill. "Yes, Titan?"

"Not you sweety," he said. "You're coming to MY room."

She could feel his rising lust, and her chill spiked to pure fear. He took her arm in his huge hand, and pulled her relentlessly to his room. Soon the door to his quarters closed firmly, cutting off the faint sounds of her tears from the hallway.

Titan pulled her to the bed, and looked down into her frightened eyes. "I'm scheduling some extra ‘empathy’ work for you, Charity," he said with a mocking tone. "You can feel what I want from you, can't ya pretty girl?" She nodded, terrified of him.

His hamlike hands touched her cheek, stroking the mocha colored skin, drawing down, past her chin, her neck, and collar bone, to dip into her blouse's cleavage. He slipped his whole hand inside her blouse top, grabbing the fabric and tearing it off her. His tongue wet his lips, as he stared hungrily at her chest.

Her bra was a soft, front-catch variety, and he unhooked it brusquely, shoving the cups aside to palm the round globes of her ample breasts. She gasped in shock as he grabbed her chest, squeezing her tits firmly. She had to fight the urge to try to step back or to push away his hands. Her feelings told her he would punish her if she did, and Charity didn't like pain.

He pulled up on them, forcing her on her tiptoes to ease the strain he was putting on her flesh. He ducked his head and slathered his hot wet tongue over her dusky nipples. His mouth roamed over her tits; kissing, sucking, and licking. She wasn't sure what was worse, his tight hands, his insistent mouth, or his grey beard stubble.

He pulled away a fraction, "Rub me!" he growled, and then lunged at her left nipple, teeth bared. She cried out as she felt his hard teeth nip at her sensitive nipple. Her hand trembling, she reached to the front of his pants, and rubbed over the rigid bulge that she found there. He grunted and thrust against her hand. He met her eyes again under lowered brows, and didn't even have to tell her to open his pants. Her hands fumbled to answer his unspoken demands.

His pole was impressive when she freed it. Like him, it was big, and nearly bigger around than it was long. Her fingers lightly brushed the feverish male flesh, before grasping it tightly. He raised his face, and kissed her brutally. He thrust his broad tongue deep into her mouth, sliding it wildly inside.

Titan stepped back and said, "Strip!" while quickly taking off his own black uniform. Her whole body shook as she disrobed, her eyes like those of a frightened doe, when facing the ravenous wolf.

He pushed her down on his bed, grabbing her legs, and dragging bottom to the very edge of the bed. He spat on his hands, rubbed it on his cock, and stepped between her splayed thighs to thrust his meat between her cunt lips. The big man's hands reached down and grabbed her ass, forcing himself to ever deeper penetration. Brutally, he pulled her tight snatch down on his thick pole.

She squealed in fierce pain at the burning stretch that she felt inside. He growled and grunted in a bestial fashion, leaning his whole weight on her slight form. He was intent on nothing but to sink his big cock all the way in her, single mindedly pushing for his goal.

Feverishly he plowed into her, ignoring her cries of pain, disgust, and muted outrage. His hands worked her ass, twisting and grinding to get his meat sunk to the hilt. Once he hit bottom in her, his hands went to her back, pulling her against him, lifting her, so he could throw their joined bodies more fully on the bed. He laid on her heavily, and growled at her, "Lock your legs behind me, cunt, I need my hands free."

Trembling, she complied. His hands clamped down on her tits, and started mauling and squeezing. He rutted his sex in her body, puffing like a freight train from the effort of his thrusts, as hard as hammer blows. Charity tried to block out his mind-numbing lust, knowing that he only wanted to use her body. If she let herself emotively participate in his arousal, she would let him think that she enjoyed his vicious assault.

As she suffered through his pummeling from her what she would freely given for the asking, she tried to think. One of her abilities was to project intense feelings. She ached to lash out with her emotive matrix of fear/pain/rage/humiliation mixed with betrayal and hopelessness in revenge for his assault.

But more than she wanted that vengeance, she feared his violent response. If those feelings poured into him, he might simply crush the life of the cause of his discomfort. So she leashed her terrors, and tried to be stoic about his endless sweaty invasion of her body.

He became more vocal, and more violent, as he neared his completion. "Yeah, pretty cunt! Oh, whimper for me, bitch, I like it to hurt. God! I like fucking your unwilling cunt so hard. I get off on rape more than anything. Can't wait to fuck the other bitches, too!" His hands squeezed her tits harder, creamy flesh turning white between his thick splayed fingers. "Fuck me bitch!  Squeeze your cunt on me, whore, or I'll rip 'em off!"

Through her pouring tears, Charity deliberately contracted her cunt muscles around him, as he came for what seemed like forever inside her. Despite her pain, she began to vicariously participate in his release with her empathy. He abruptly pulled out of her and raised to his knees, to finish cumming on her body.

He sprayed his jets of sperm on her belly, giving a barking laugh while subjecting her to this final indignity. He pulled her leg out of his way, and sat heavily, as his meat became flaccid. "Get out of my bed, cunt, and hurry up."

Charity tried to move, with little success. Her pelvis ached, and her insides felt raw. "I said get off, bitch!" A long brawny arm reached out and shoved her unceremoniously to the floor. He laid back on the bed, and wriggled to a comfortable position. "Now get to your own room, I need my sleep."

She struggled to rise, and managed to start crawling on her hands and knees towards his door.

"Oh for the love of... Goddamit, you're making a mess." He lurched up, grabbed her by the waist, and lifting her to her feet. He opened the door and shoved her into the dark hallway. Then he slammed his door shut.

Charity stood shakily, leaning hard against the wall, nude. She was dripping with his cum and decorated with his bruises. She slowly turned to her room, and slid along the wall, trying not to fall down. She cringed when she heard a door open. The only thing worse than him coming back after her, was one of the others seeing her like this.

A fair slender arm slipped around her, and she felt supported. Together, she and her helper got her to her bathroom, where a careful and gentle toweling cleaned up the worst traces of her disgrace. Charity didn't have the strength to shower, so that would have to do for tonight. The shivering young woman curled up in her bed in a ball, and looked up miserably at the pale blue eyes of the older woman.

"Thanks," she whispered.

"Glad to help," said Paris Simmons as she left the room. 'But it's not over yet', she thought to herself.

* * *

The next day, a cheerful Titan walked down the hall, pounding on the doors of his team, shouting for them to wake up. Charity groaned and slowly washed herself and got dressed. Her breasts and pelvis ached with pain, and her hips felt unsteady, but dressed she looked all right. He hadn't touched her face, neck, or hands. By the time he pounded again on her door, raising his voice in anger at her tardiness, she was as ready as she was going to be.

The old bat was staring at him with a disapproving expression. He glared back at her, unsure of what she might know or would say, but trying to intimidate her with his stare. She didn't budge. When he turned around, Zeke was holding Charity by the arm and looking concerned as she stumbled. Titan strode over and slapped away the black man's arm.

"Don't coddle the girl," he said curtly. A flare of hot anger shone in Zeke's eyes, and Titan took it as a challenge. He balled his fists and leaned his bulk towards the smaller man. "If you're feeling froggy, Nigger, then why don't you jump!" The eyes of the bald man turned stone cold, and he would not turn them away. Titan raised his fist, while power crackled around the Psionicist.

"No!" Charity pleaded, not daring to touch either man, but interposing herself between them. "I'll be alright, Zeke," she said quickly, swallowing hard. "Titan is right." While keeping her eyes on Titans steely grey eyes, she reached out with her power, and let a sliver of her terror intersect Zeke's aura. He jumped in shocked surprise.

"Good girl," the big man said, oblivious to the power she had used. His smile was half a leer at her, and half a sneer for the cowardice he perceived in the Telekinetic. "You heard the girl, *BOY*, so back off. Let's remember the chain of command and try to look professional here."

For the rest of the training period, he rode them hard. He spent the time watching them, while standing aloof. He also was watching the bodies of the two younger women. Karen avoided him, and even cool Joanne tended to lean away from the big man when he got near.

During dinner, he seemed relaxed and happy. Charity shuddered at something underneath his pleasant facade that none of the others could see. Titan addressed the team afterwards. "Based on your performances, I'm restricting some of you to quarters tonight. You sucked in the exercises and drills, and obviously need your rest. But don't worry, I'll whip you all into shape, in time." He smiled wickedly.

"Charity, you need to take care of yourself better. Paris, you're letting yourself go to pot, lady. Tim, you're gonna lose some of that baby fat! If I see any of you out of your rooms before morning, you'll be subject to discipline. And I'm allowed a bit of leeway in administering that discipline." He smiled again, and none of them liked it this time. "Dismissed!"

At Joanne's door that night, there was a knock. The red haired woman opened the door, and saw Titan standing there with a smirk. "Miss Barrett? I know that it's late, but there’s something I need you to see in my quarters..."

* * *

In the weeks that followed, the Power team had the occasional day off from their oppression. Paris Simmons, Seeker, sat patiently awaiting a chance to see Robert during one of the days he held open court. Her name was one of the last, and the Steward warned her that Robert sometimes cut off the last few interviews. However, if those petitioners turned up for the next session, they had priority.

She waited anyway, and finally walked into the great room with her cane, to stand leaning on the polished wood at the golden point of the great star.

"Paris!" Robert said. "Come over to the table," he invited. He waved at the Steward to end the day's interviews. "How are you?" he inquired.

"A little tired, sir. Titan emphasizes the physical training a bit much for my tastes." She smiled wryly, "Though I'm able to do more sit-ups and push-ups than I have for years."

"I've underlined readiness with him," Robert said, "but he also has to work within your contracts. Your contract specifies that you are not a combat operative, and though I can't blame him for wanting you all physically fit, he shouldn't push anyone too hard."

"That's what I wanted to tell you, sir," Paris insisted. "The team is in serious trouble, and it's only going to get worse! A single disruptive member is being abusive, destroying our morale."

"Surely Titan can deal with..." Robert began, with a faintly bored tone.

"It *IS* Titan, sir!" she interrupted with a note of desperation. "You have no idea what he's doing to us."

"It can't be all that bad," Robert said. "I'll have a talk with him, if you like."

"No!" she pleaded. "If you talk to him about this, he'll just take it out on us. I'm asking you for a meeting with all of us, where we can tell you what's been happening."

Robert sighed. "The whole reason I appointed a captain was so I wouldn't have to hear all the petty bickering. Can't you just give him your concerns?"

"The last person to do that," she said stiffly, "was slapped in the face, and required four stitches. I'm told the official report said that he had 'suffered a fall'. I was there and I saw the slap, and the blood. We really do need this meeting with you."

"I saw the report on Zeke," Robert said with concern. "Alright. I'll schedule that meeting when I have time. The local U.S. Military is getting aggressive, and I'm having to keep an eye on the situations."

"Thank you sir," she said, wearily getting to her feet with the aid of her cane. She murmured softly as she left, "I only hope that you're in time."

 

To be Continued...

[A/n: Well, Rebbeca saw that one coming, didn’t she…?]

[Version: C - 1/2015.]


	10. "When The Cat's Away, The Mice Will Play."

In Robert's Military Command room, the Dark man read through tactical reports that Seeker had been providing him. She provided them in her professional capacity. He'd removed Paris from team temporarily until he had her problem straightened out. As yet, he hadn't had the time to deal with it. She was more important to him at Tactical in this emergency, than she was performing calisthenics under Titan's not so tender mercies.

Robert was trying to understand was General Stark was doing. The General had stripped clean some installations, moving the men and supplies by truck caravan to other bases under his control. He'd even forcefully invaded a federal reserve facility, and made off with tons of food, and thousands of gallons of gasoline. The bases he was consolidating to were nearly all Air Force Bases, and at those his forces were entrenching.

When he left a place, he left behind a small number of executed officers. Exactly for what reason they were being killed, Robert couldn't fathom. The Black Legion had found a young officer hiding in the woods near one of the bases. He'd taken off when he'd heard Stark was coming, having heard on the grapevine what happened at the General's "staff meetings". The Command Staff of the base either wholeheartedly joined forces with the senior officer's plans, or they left the room in a body bag. The recent OTS graduate had decided his best choice was to avoid the process altogether.

He had willingly joined Robert's Legion, and was now a Captain, and rising fast. Having real army experience as an enlisted and an officer had really helped him. Other converted military people in the Legion experienced similar success. Robert welcomed them, knowing that they improved his forces.

"What is his pattern?" Robert mused. "If I knew what Stark was planning, then maybe I could do something about it."

"I can help you with that, sir," said a tired but semi-familiar voice behind him. Robert turned and saw the adjutant that had accompanied General Stark in the meeting the old soldier had with him. Lt. Jenners stood in the door of the Command room, a member of the elite Midnight Guard just behind him.

The Lieutenant looked very different from the last time Robert had seen him. Instead of the fastidious dress uniform, he was wearing torn and dirty fatigues. There were bandages on his shoulder and head and his face was weary.

"I've got him, Sergeant," Robert said to the guardsman, who nodded and left. The Dark man sent pages to get his staff in here, and gestured for the young officer to sit. "Why have you come to me?" Robert asked as they waited.

"I... I deserted... him. It wasn't even the Army anymore, sir," Jenners swallowed. "He'd become one of the Warlords he'd accused you of being. He's not a soldier. I came to you because you weren't afraid of him."

Rebecca had entered the room, and immediately laid her hands of Jenners' shoulders. Her white glow surrounded him, and then she lifted the wrappings on his head. Satisfied she took them off, showing the fresh pink scar on his forehead. The young man smiled his thanks to her.

"But you should be afraid, sir," Jenners said to Roberts as Titan and Wolf sat down. "You should be very afraid."

"Why?" Robert said, leaning back in his chair.

"Because he's got control of several Nukes," Jenners said.

Robert sat bolt upright in his chair, no longer looking complacent. "Nuclear Weapons?" he said, disbelievingly.

"That's right, sir. And he's having them programmed to strike here."

"At the... Why does he want to Nuke the Palace?" Robert said, his brows furrowed in anger.

"I knew the last time I was here that he intended to take control of some of the nuclear weapons in order to restore order," Jenners said. "After he met you, he became obsessed with destroying you, and everything you stand for."

"Can you survive a nuclear blast, Robert?" Rebecca said. "Even if you can, the rest of us most likely cannot." Robert nodded to her.

Titan leaned forward, an eager glow in his eyes. "Let me take the team in, boss. We'll settle his hash."

"No," Robert said. "You can't prevent the launchings that your strike might cause, nor can you make the Nukes harmless like I can. I'll need the team later, though, when I go to absorb his conventional forces." Titan smiled in anticipation, and loudly popped his knuckles.

Robert turned to Jenners, "So why tell me?" he said again.

The officer turned a haunted face to him. "Because there are civilians here, sir, and in the surrounding town. We saw children playing outside the Palace, but he doesn't care about that now. I do care. I couldn't allow innocent lives to be lost because I didn't act."

"Thank you, Jenners," Robert said. "I have to go take care of this problem, right away. Titan, you're in charge until I get back." With an ebon flash, he disappeared.

"Yes, sir," Titan said, his grin feral, and his eyes cold.

* * *

Robert appeared in a silo bunker, Rod in hand. He made himself invisible, and began scanning the towering missile poised to obliterate him.

He could just make it disappear, and the next one, and perhaps the one after that. But soon his efforts would be noticed, and from somewhere he hadn't yet found, or even from a mobile platform, the attack would still come. He didn't want the Empire he had begun to build in Iowa to be destroyed. He would have to do something subtle and decisive, to protect his dreams.

The bored Air Force officers began to play cards until their shift was over, unaware of the Dark Man's presence. Robert sat out of the way in the cramped bunker, and reached out to the missile with his powers. He needed to know its abilities, properties and weaknesses. The way it was intended to function, and the way one disabled it.

When the time came he had to be able to find all the weapons like it in the region, and wipe them out all at once. He hoped that would remove all the bombs under Stark's control or at least the majority of them.

It was going to take time to do this; a lot of time, many hours, perhaps. It would be worth it, though. He slipped deep into a meditative state, oblivious to all else but his intense study. He was unaware what was transpiring in the Palace that he was trying so hard to protect.

* * *

It took a whole 30 minutes before Titan got the nerve to try out the great Sapphire Throne for size. He felt fully qualified to succeed the little punk as Emperor someday, and he intended to pick the right time and place to do it.

Part of the instructions he'd been given if he ever had to hold the fort for Robert, was to leave the Dark man's personal quarters and his women strictly alone. Robert impressed on him that the punishment for that would be... severe. Something about a gelding...

However, that left everyone in the Palace not in the harem up for grabs. The Power Team was boring. He'd fucked all the girls worth fucking, except for the old bat. He hadn't been able to hold his gorge down enough to try that. The men he'd bullied, or had slapped into line.

During his tours with mercenary companies in Indo-China, Hank Dodds, (a.k.a. Titan) had acquired some unusual desires. They involved underaged girls, and snuff-fucks. At times, like now, he had the time and the opportunity to satisfy his desires.

He summoned one of the prettier girl pages to the throne room, after ordering everyone else to leave. The girl stood before him in the cheery yellow-gold uniform of an Imperial page, awaiting his orders. She looked to be 13 or 14, just barely budding into adolescence. Titan felt his cock start to stir in desire.

"Come here, girl," he said huskily. She approached him, unsure of what he wanted. His hand snaked out and clamped on her shoulder, making her cry out in pain. "Kneel," he growled, and when she didn't obey right away, he forced her to her knees.

"Don't move," he hissed at her, showing her his other hand, curled in a fist. She nodded in fear, having felt just how strong and fast he was. He half rose, opening his pants, and letting his thick cock free to bob in the air in front of the girl.

Shocked, she shook her head in fervent denial of his intentions. He gave her a gentle slap on the face, that made her head whip to one side, and vivid finger marks appear on her cheek. Tears appeared in her eyes, and trickled down in a steady flow. He fingered her name tag, and pawed her small chest.

"Blow me, Alyssa," he said, "or I'll get rough."

Her tear-streaked eyes widened, how could he possibly get rougher than that? His slap had almost taken her head off. Slowly, unwilling, Alyssa opened her lips, and let him draw her close enough to surround his cock with her warm, wet mouth.

"Ahh," he sighed in satisfaction. "Suck me, you little cunt. I want to feel my cum go down your throat. Oh, you have a hot little mouth, just like the pretty girls in Laos," he said. He pumped her head on him, pushing his dick deeper down her throat with every thrust. "I wonder if you have a hot little cunt, too? Maybe we'll both find out."

It wouldn't take him long to cum. Indulging in one of his favorite vices right on his bosses 'throne' got him so hard. Raping Alyssa's mouth like this was better than any of the other little girls that he'd had. Except, of course, for the ones he'd filled with his seed, just as the burning fear in their eyes faded forever, choked off by his hands tightly clamped around their throats. No, there was no orgasm better than that.

He didn't quite feel free to do that to this girl, unfortunately. Since he was 'deputy emperor', he might as well take advantage of the privileges of the rank. His gruntings got louder, and with a deep groan he shot into her mouth, shouting at her to drink it.

Alyssa tried, but she shook with terror when she couldn't help but let some of it dribble down her chin.

"You careless little...!" he snarled and raised his fist.

"Stop, Titan!" a clear voice commanded him. He spun around to see an angry Rebecca White walking toward them. "Let her go!" she said.

"And why should I?" he sneered. He still held onto the girl's shoulder with a painful grip.

"Leave her alone," she said to him, noting the red marks on her face, and the semen dripping down her chin, and beading on her uniform's yellow front.

"I'm not done with her yet," he said. "But I've got a better idea." He reached besides the throne for the black chain coiled besides it, with the connector that mated to her dark serpentine necklace. "Put that on, and I'll let her go." He threw it to her, and she caught it.

"Let her go, and I'll put it on," Rebecca countered. "Because you know that my word is worth something, and yours isn't."

Titan frowned at her, and then with a nasty grin he pushed Alyssa away. "Scoot," he said, and she did, rushing out of the room at a run.

Rebecca lifted the chain, and connected it to what had been her collar. Titan began drawing her closer by the chain, hand over hand. "I've been wanting a piece of you since Ol' Robbie-boy showed us what a hot fuck you are. And since I'm holding the fort, and you aren't in the harem, I get to fuck your lily-white cunt. I'm going to enjoy this, bitch."

Rebecca tried to resist his pull, out of pride. The chain limited her ability to project her white energy, and together with the collar crippled her powers to resist Robert's corruption. Only the first function meant much to Titan, she was sure. She didn't think that he was really worried about her energy, as he often boasted of his invulnerability, but the chain did mean she couldn't escape him.

"He's been letting you get to his head," Titan growled. "The upper one, that is. He's been talking about Laws, and rules, and I don't like 'em. I wanna do what I wanna do. So I'm gonna teach you to keep your pure heart morality to yourself, sister. Those of us in power want to enjoy it."

"You're making a mistake, Henry," Rebecca said. "He will not appreciate you acting like this..."

"What will he care?" Titan smirked. "You're the thorn in side," he said as he pulled her short by her chain. "I figure that if I tame you he'll give me a medal. I'd like to do something that he couldn't do."

"You're wrong," Rebecca said. She looked away from him as she continued. "I'm ashamed to admit it, but he could have broken my will, if he had kept going with me, but he *chose* not to. It wasn't because he couldn't break me, he just decided not to. He didn't want me to be subservient to him, he wanted me to cooperate willingly."

"Then he was a fool," Titan said with a merciless smile. "I'd rather have you as a simpering love-slave. Prepare for your first lesson, 'Becky'." He reached out and tore the pale blue tailored dress off her, then the rest of her garments. He stared hungrily at her for a moment when she stood before him, naked except for the black necklace and it's chain.

He quickly stripped himself, yanking her close to him, and roughly kissing her. On reflex she raised her power to strike him, but the grounding chain protected the mercenary as well as it had the Emperor. Rebecca could not stand still and submit to him quietly, so she struggled. He was just a strong man, not a nigh demi-god or demon, and he couldn't coerce her acquiescence. In frustration, he took matters into his own hands. Literally.

Titan put both hands on her left upper arm, and sharply bent it in the middle. With a muffled crack the bone broke. He'd made it a clean break; if he had twisted his hands he could have made multiple fractures and splintered the bone. He didn't want her to pass out, just yet.

Rebecca's face went pale, as the shock went through her. He pushed her down on her back on the scattered cushions of the dais. He was smiling cruelly as he told her the situation. "If you fight me anymore, I'll *bump* your arm. So be a good girl, and don't fight. I just want to enjoy fucking you."

He pulled out the lube he would have used on the page girl, and gave his thick phallus a liberal coating of it. She wasn't wet, he knew, but he didn't care. His dick was as hard as steel, and he stabbed her with it as if he meant to kill her.

She cried out her in pain as he rammed into her. The vicious entrance had jostled her injured arm. His hands curled under her full ass, forcing her cunt up hard to meet his ravaging thrusts, doubling the impact. Between the battering pain of his brutal rape, and the throbbing pain in her arm, Rebecca was quite unable to offer any physical resistance to his assault. Her body was his plaything.

Her mind retreated, withdrawing deep within herself. Distantly she knew what Titan was doing to her. He was fucking her as hard as he could, and was starting to get angry at her lack of response. He even started poking her bruised and swelling arm, so he could enjoy the involuntary grimaces she made.

A part of her had been working on a problem for some time. Ever since she knew that Robert couldn't manipulate her as he could everyone else, she had been thinking about it, in the back of her mind. His dark power gave him great abilities, limited only by his febrile imagination. Hers seemed to be his opposite, but she had less power... or did she?

Was it the power that was lacking, or her confidence in it? A door opened deep in her mind, and then she knew the answer. Her power could potentially be as great as his, or even greater... if only she would believe it to be so. But she had been chosen because she felt no craving for personal power. Her only love was Justice. And this certainly was not fair! In Titan's mind was a forming plan to kill her as he finished his rape. It was up to her do something about it, if she wanted to live.

She tried to unravel the black collar, and grimaced in shock as she failed in her first attempt. It was too hard to try to fight its structure when she was in such trauma. She did manage to begin a process of healing, and that helped. She couldn't zap Titan with her power, so what could she do to stop him? As she groped for the way to repair herself, she saw how that ability could be passively used to affect others.

With a hard shove and a groan, Titan began to come explosively inside her. His grin was feral as he reached up to place his hands firmly around her neck. A yawn interrupted him, followed by another one, even stronger. His hands grew slack on her throat, and he raised them to rub his eyes. That orgasm had felt so good, and he was so tired... He barely managed to roll his bulk off Rebecca before he was fully asleep, snoring soundly.

She pulled a pillow in front of her nude body, and waited. She couldn't leave the dais with the chain around her neck, and she was too tired to unravel it. She had to keep her abuser asleep if she didn't want him to finish the murder, and/or assault her again. She had to wait for Robert. Where was the sonofabitch, anyway?

* * *

Robert's dark eyes opened. He understood the nuclear missile in a way he wouldn't be able to articulate in words. He reached out throughout his territory and in a large buffer zone surrounding it, and turned all the nuclear weapons in that area, ...off. He absorbed their potential energy, and converted the fissionable materials into harmless clay.

The Dark man stayed in the bunker long enough to see if the officers had noticed the change. No dials or tell-tales had flickered, so they kept on playing cards. The inert missiles could still cause damage to the Palace and the town, so his power flared again, and disabled the rocket engines as well. When they finally turned the keys at Stark's command, it would be too late, the missiles would stay put.

He smiled in satisfaction. Stark's fangs had been pulled, and the General didn't have a clue. Robert could take out his conventional forces long before the mad General's people had a chance to discover the damage he had done this day, much less be able to fix it.

...

Robert appeared in the command room where Lt. Jenners and the Power Team waited. On the big board, the locations of every U.S. Nuke was pin-pointed in bright red. With a nod, all the ones that he had neutralized faded to black, and then turned green. "One problem resolved," he told them. "I've turned them all into paperweights, and I can do the rest when I have the time or need."

He had expected cheers. Or at least 'Good job, sir', along with relieved smiles. Instead, he was greeted by nervous silence. Obviously, something else had gone wrong. Paris had an expression that could be called vindictive, and Charity was trying to comfort a female page.

"What's wrong?" he said.

"It's Titan," Paris said. "You remember what I said?" He nodded seriously. When you left, he forced himself on Alyssa, here. Rebecca traded herself to him so he wouldn't hurt the girl any further. So the brute raped Rebecca instead. She's still chained to the throne, in the Grand Hall. She's trying to keep him asleep, so he won't kill her."

Robert's face took on a fierce scowl at this news, and those present could see why he was called the Dark man. He didn't say a word as he turned around and stalked to the throne room, spinning the Rod easily in his hands as if he intended to do some 'batting practice' with it.

He paused at the big doors, looking at the big man, who was sprawled naked on the dais, and the woman seated on his throne, clutching a large pillow in front of her. She sighed in relief when she saw him come in and glare not at her, but at Titan. He was followed at a distance by those he'd left in the Command center, including the young page, who held Charity's hand.

Robert came up to the dais, and tapped Titan's barrel chest with the Rod lightly, to ensure his slumber. "You can relax Rebecca, I've got him." He turned and gestured at Rebecca, and she was cleaned and dressed. He drew the pillow from her she was desperately clutching, as gently as he could. His fingers were feather light as he released the chain, and then stroked her face.

"Are you alright?" he said.

"No," she said, her voice trembling. "He broke my arm."

He reached for her arm, noticing her flinch involuntarily from his touch. When he used his power on her, he noted that for once it wasn't conflicting with hers, and that she'd already been healing herself some. "Just stay here," he said softly.

Robert stepped back, and with a flash of dark light, dressed Titan as well. He grabbed him by the collar of his uniform, and dragged him down the dais steps, letting him awake as he did so. "Rise and shine!" he said. "Come on, Titan, I want to talk to you."

Titan got up fast, taking in the scene at a glance. He decided that his only way out of the mess he was in would be to kill Robert, and fast. With no warning, he attacked the Dark man.

A black bolt surrounded the thick man as he came at Robert, but it didn't stop him. Titan grinned, taunting, "Losing your touch, 'M'lord'? You know there's only two kinds... the quick... and the dead!" with that he swung with all his might. The snapping sound from his blow made everyone wince, until they saw Robert standing unmoved, and Titan cradling a broken hand.

"You know, I'm the one that gave you those Powers you were so proud of," Robert said, conversationally. "Didn't it occur to you that I could also take them away at any time? You can't be trusted with them, and so you'll never again have them." Robert gestured at the other man's groin, "And you can't be trusted with that, either." Titan stared numbly at him, unable to comprehend what he meant.

"Lady Web," Robert said, "give me what he did to you all; what Paris told me about this morning." The redhead's eyes shone as she established the mental connections, not only with the Team, but also to the girl and to Rebecca. Robert winced at the rawness of the abuse, and bowed his head. He'd made Titan his deputy. The spaceship shows he'd seen on TV had taught him that a commander was responsible for the actions of his subordinates.

The Emperor sat on the dais steps, and gestured for Alyssa to come to him. The girl went straight to his arms and cried. He patted her gently, "It will be alright, Alyssa," he said to her. "He won't be able to hurt you again. Go ahead and go back to your quarters." With a sniffle and a peck on his cheek, she went.

Robert reached inside of Titan's mind, and he recoiled at what he found there. Robert had found the limit to his darkness and corruption, as Rebecca had foreseen. What this man had done, and was capable of doing was too sick for even the Dark man's sensibilities, although he caught a hint from the Rod that it wouldn't have balked at that level of evil.

"As a man, you are a murderer and a rapist, and you always will be. So I will now take something else away from you that you don't need." Another flare of black, and Hank Dodds was briefly concealed by it. When it faded away, the man who had been Titan was now a woman!

"I've instituted Road Gangs" Robert said, "as a way of making hardened criminals useful in my Empire. I don't assign you to join them -- instead I sentence you to serve them. You will be cook, laundress, maid and concubine, to every man on the gang I send you to. In other words, I mean to see that you get a belly full of what you've been dishing out for all these years." He grinned evilly. "Guards! Haul him... I mean HER out of here." Robert watched as they hauled the prisoner away.

Robert turned to the Team. "I'm sorry this had to happen. Paris, I should have had that meeting with you right away, and remembered what you said. He shouldn't have been left in charge when I'd already been told he'd had his hand in the cookie jar." He shook his head, "Alyssa shouldn't have had to pay for my mistakes, nor Rebecca either." The Dark man sighed. "I try to learn from my errors, and I know now I should have let you choose your own leader. So, who is it going to be?"

The Team muttered among themselves for short time, and quickly came to a consensus. A friendly, but un-gentle shove pushed the bald black man to the forefront of the group.

"Hey!" Teke said. "I don't want to be no damned leader, I've got no taste for it."

Charity came up to him, and gently touched near the stitches on his brown cheek. "You're the only one of us who tried to stand up to him. Your words inspired us, while _his_ inspired only loathing and fear. It has to be you."

"I just couldn't stand to you see any of you hurt," he said. "Especially..." his words trailed off as he stared deep in her eyes. Charity smiled hugely and wrapped her arms around him. He looked up helplessly at Robert, who shrugged, smiling.

"The Team has spoken," Robert said. "You've got a lot to do in order to get these people working together as a Team."

"Ah, hell," Teke swore, and laughter answered him. "I suppose the first thing would be if we learned to trust one another."

"Good," Robert said. "Now, get 'em out of here. I have to talk to Rebecca."

They left, and he walked up the steps, and picked up the trembling woman in his arms. He carried her to her bedroom, and sat her against her pillows. He sat on the end of the bed.

"I'm sorry, Rebecca," he said. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"I know," she said. "But he was only following your example. Don't you see? As a leader, if you set a rule that you don't follow yourself, you are only a hypocrite. If you enforce a rule that you yourself break, you are a tyrant, and not a leader."

"Damn it," he said frowning, "that will be so hard."

She sighed, in no mood to fence with him, or to pull her punches. "The government you want will demand more of you than it will required of any of your citizens. If you aren't willing to pay that price, all you have to do is abandon your dreams."

"Ouch," he said. "I do want laws, but laws untainted by the stupid morals and petty regulations of the United States. If they must apply to me as well, then that is the price that I will have to pay. You're right about that." He reached up and melted the black collar from around her slender neck. "There, you're free. Will you consider staying on and helping me with my dream?"

"I don't know," she said. "So much has happened." She put her face in her hands. "I wouldn't know where to go."

"What is your dream?" he said, realizing he had never asked her anything personal like that before. He wished he'd done so earlier.

"My Dream is Justice," she said. "But maybe our dreams are not incompatible. Perhaps there is hope for you yet."

 

To be Continued...

[Version: C - 1/2015.]


	11. "Within The Fist of Darkness."

The severe autumn was shaping up to be yet another hard Winter. As the privations of the season began to clamp down on the North, everyone felt the lack of the fuel and supplies that were readily available under the old economic system. The Empire wasn't hurting much, because the Emperor supported them.

Months after Robert had tamed the nuclear weapons, his Black Legion, now 15 divisions strong, were ready to move against General Stark's conventional forces. Robert's military numbered in the many thousands, with many of the able bodied men and many women in his four state Empire joining it, in order to fulfill the full employment requirement. Even the Power Team had a role in the Legions, as the premiere Special Forces unit.

But Stark's soldiers felt the lack of the taxpayer's tributes, and raided the civilians of the surrounding communities near them for basic supplies. Many areas in the North Eastern U.S. suffered these attacks, causing them to plead with the Dark man to deliver them. He was willing to oblige, but while the Empire prepared for the coming Campaign, the innocents outside it were suffering.

* * *

Sergeant Brad Donovan loved going to town for supplies. His Platoon was composed of first class fuck-ups that the old Army wanted to get rid of. They were in his care because only Brad could control the rowdy bastards. The "regulars" considered them criminal scum, and their Platoon was dubbed "The Rats".

One of them, Corporal Steven Leigh, was accused of raping a little girl in the foreign country he'd been based in. The scandal had been embarrassing, but they couldn't prove he did it. Still, the PR was so bad, they'd sent him home, for a face saving Court-Martial.

Donovan's band proved efficient at sniffing out goods civilians tried to keep for themselves. This success did a lot to change their previous record of being slackers and thugs. Brad wasn't babysitting bad-boys anymore; now he led men perfectly suited for 'requisitioning' missions. Every sort of leverage and threat was tried to get the supplies, but it was Corporal Leigh who found the most effective means of all...

The Rats came into town for warm clothing and blankets. Donovan provided the diplomatic angle, while two ex-MP's, Rillburg and Renes, served up the threat of violence over the barrels of their machine guns.

"Look Mr. and Mrs. King, under the National Economic Emergency Act passed by the U.S. Congress, you're required to render what assistance the Military requires," Sergeant Donovan said, patiently. "You're the community leaders, and we're not leaving until we have what we came for."

He nodded to where the former MP's leaned against the doors of the town's council chambers. "Here is the legal requisition of supplies from my commander. I'm not going back to base without the materials it specifies."

"Yeah," Private Doug Renes said, fingering his weapon, "it might be...unhealthy. For us, and for you." The Rats shifted uncomfortably, remembering the dire threats that had made about summary executions if they didn't deliver the winter supplies.

Tom King had learned not to raise his voice against them. He'd gotten a black eye for it last time. "Sergeant, what you see here is everything we can spare. That has to be good enough; we can't give you anymore. Just tell your Captain that's all there is, he'll understand."

"It's you who don't understand," Private Kyle Rillburg said. "If we don't come back with *everything* the Captain wants, he'll take it out on our hides, and frankly, King, I'd rather take it out on yours."

"You expect the Military to serve the public," Donovan said, "right?" King nodded. "When the public was paying taxes to support the Military, that was true. But that isn't happening anymore, King, and we're not asking for charity. I'm three months in arrears of my pay, and I'm willing to take it in goods. Since you aren't supporting us with your taxes, we'll take your possessions -- at gunpoint, if we have to."

"Won't be necessary, Sarge," said another voice. "I think I can speed up this procedure."

Sergeant Donovan looked over where Corporal Leigh was herding in two girls. One, young and docile, went where he told her to. The other was an angry teen who only went with him because he held a belt that throttled her neck.

"Tanya!" King said, "C'mere darling. Get away from him!"

The quiet girl started to take a step to her father, but stopped at a soft word from Leigh, "Bang." She hung her head and looked away from her dad.

"Damn you," King said. "What are you doing with her? And that's my niece, Carol!"

"Yes, Corporal," Donovan said, "what are you doing?"

Steven Leigh handed the teen's leash to a Private, and went to speak quietly with the Sergeant. "I've thought of a better way than just shooting them and starting over. Let me wing this, and he'll fall all over himself to give us what we ask for."

Brad narrowed his eyes, but then he nodded. "Do it."

The Corporal turned to the frantic father, who was being held back only by machine gun barrels. "Mr. King," Steve said. "These two lovely young girls will be giving some 'hospitality' to a few of the Country's finest. Once you've provided everything on the list in acceptable quality, they will be released.

His cold smile sent shivers down Donovan's spine. "I hope you take longer than 30 minutes, 'Dad'. That's about my minimum for a good solid fuck!" The younger girl shuddered.

"You monster!" Tom King shouted. "Let them go!"

Steve looked at his watch, and handed the girl a large tube of KY jelly from his pocket. "Time is counting down, Mr. King, but if you stick around for about 5 minutes, you should be able to hear your daughter's virgin scream."

King moaned in frustration. Donovan told the B squad to guard the Town Council's outer doors, and led A squad into the inner Council room with the girls. As they closed the doors, he said, "You're a sick sonofabitch, Steve."

"Better believe it, Sarge," Leigh said. "Better to pop their cherries than for us to face a fuckin' firing squad. You joining us?"

"No, Corporal," Donovan said. "I'm Christian, and that would be a sin. But I'll stay, to make sure you're not getting too rough."

"You like to watch, Sarge?" Leigh said. "I never would have guessed. C'mon boys, let's have some pussy."

Some of the men hesitated, and Donovan assured them, "Don't worry. Corporal Mac knows if one squad gets something extra, the other will get their turn next time."

The girls were stripped, and laid back on the tables. Nylon ropes secure them, while the soldiers ditched their ragged uniforms. The Corporal stated smearing the KY over the pink lower lips of the younger girl, who was maybe 14. Then his slick hand started sensuously rubbing his stiff meat. Tanya watched him like a bird watches a snake. When he finished, his cock strained upward against his belly, leaking precum.

Leigh climbed between her legs, smiling. He pushed his hard cock down, so it dragged through her sparse bush. She shrieked a little at the touch of his hot flesh, and then gasped as he started rubbing it steadily across her little clit. He kept up the steady rubbing until her entrance wet slightly.

He began pushing his rigid cock lower. Deep between her cunt lips it slid, until his head found her slot and began to push inside. She started struggling uselessly at the merciless pressure of the intruder within her innermost folds. His hips slowly sank down as he pushed in, and then stopped with a grin.

"I thought you were a virgin," he said. "Today, you're gonna become a woman around the head of my cock!"

"Oh god no please," she babbled, "no don't, please!"

Donovan noticed his men were jacking their meat, anxiously waiting for their turns. His own cock ached as well, so calmly he opened his trousers and began to rub his hard prick. The men looked at him wide-eyed, because he easily had the biggest meat in the room.

He looked over at the older girl, where two buddies were working on her together. She looked about 17, and one was eating her pussy, while the other was kneading and slobbering on her tits. "Look guys," the Sergeant said, "we don't know how long we have here, so why don't you start teaming up on them?"

"Alright!" one of the younger men said, and pushed over to where the corporal was teasing Tanya's clit again. He grabbed a handful of her small firm breast, and held his commando knife across her throat, aiming his cock at her face. "Open up, pretty thing, I want your mouth."

She moaned, "Don't hurt me. Please! God, no..."

He pushed his dripping hard-on against her mouth and forced it open. He shifted the knife closer, "Don't you bite me, bitch."

Leigh watched, and as the other man entered her mouth, he plunged fully into her virgin cunt. Her muffled scream of pain made it easier for the soldier to push his dick in. Another man began to work on her tits, while a forth put her unresisting hand around his meat, so she pumped his cock with him.

On the other table, the buddies were sandwiching Carol. The one under her eased her ass down on his thick greased cock. His partner knelt straddling him, with his dick poised to jam in her cunt. Two more were taking turns playing with her tits and fucking her mouth.

Soon, every man in the room had at least a girl's hand wrapped around his cock, if not in one hole or another. All, that is, except the Sarge, who stood back and watched it all, slowing beating his big cock.

The soldier with the knife groaned, grinding his pelvis in Tanya's face, pumping his jizz as deep as he could. As soon as he stepped away, another man put his cock into her mouth. Corporal Leigh was still slowly fucking her. He had stamina, and the girl was struggling so delightfully under him.

He sped up his tempo a bit, and she gasped in pain, wailing that he was killing her. "No, cunt. I'm fucking you. There's a difference." She only moaned in response.

He began slamming her hard, as her mouth was invaded by the third cock since her ordeal began. She was starting to learn how to breath even with the men's thick penis jammed down her throat. Leigh grabbed her hips and brutally rammed her, grunting as he pushed all the way in, and pumped his cum deep inside.

One of the younger guys holding Tanya's hand around his shaft bucked, as he shot his wad on top of her. Leigh still lay on her, rocking his hips a little with his eyes closed. Someone tapped his shoulder to cut in, and the Corporal snarled back at him, making the soldier back up a step.

"Now, Corporal," Donovan said. "Remember, it was your idea to share the girls, right? You've had a turn, move aside."

Leigh scowled, but he climbed down, and used the girl's skirt to clean his pink-stained cock. Then he got dressed, and sat near the door with his machine gun. He was done for the day, and someone had to keep guard.

"Something wrong, Steve?" the Sergeant said, still stroking himself.

Leigh answered without looking at him. "Like you, Sarge, I got my standards. Me; I don't ever take sloppy seconds. Once someone else gets her, I don't want her anymore."

"Your loss, Leigh," one of the others said, but the Corporal only shrugged.

Donovan continued to stroke, wondering how things were going outside.

...

Corporal Mac hadn't seen a civilian so eager to fulfill a Military order in his whole career. King had made a flurry of phone calls and sent his wife off with several messages. Quicker than they'd been told was possible, the supplies started arriving.

He knew there would be a next time, so when the stuff came, he took his time evaluating it. He wanted good quality, and at the same time make sure the guys had lots of time to enjoy. He rejected a quarter of the goods, making King practically scream at him to get on with it.

Mac said, "We deserve only the best..." a scream of passion from Carol interrupted him, "...which it seems they're getting in there. Doesn't it make you proud, to know your family is giving their all in the service of their country?" He gave a wicked smile while the men solemnly saluted the inner council room.

"Mr. King, the longer you stand here and argue with me, the longer this is going to take. He hooked his thumb to the doors, "And that will take longer, also. So go ahead, man. Yell at me. My buddies have been needing some fresh pussy."

The councilman looked apoplectic, but Mac cooly continued. "Now, Mr. King, we don't have all the required blankets yet, nor the clothing we need. I suggest you get busy calling some more."

...

In the inner room, the men were slowing down. They'd all had a turn or two at the girls, and some were dressing, as the rest finished up.

Donovan was starting to sweat. He was starting to feel a need to come, and that meant he should stop. Leigh smirked when Sarge's mouth twisted, and the big man slowed down his pumping.

"Ya know," the Corporal drawled, "it's a sin to waste it."

Donovan frowned at the pedophile. "I know. That's why I'm stopping."

Leigh handed his gun to another, and went to Tanya. "I think I know how you can get off, *and* avoid a sin," he said.

"What do you mean?" Donovan said.

"Fornification is a sin," Leigh said. "And so is wasting your spunk. So why don't you point your canon over here at this cunt, and cum on it. You haven't put it in her hole, but your little guys can swim around in that swamp, and have as much a chance as any of ours to knock her up. That wouldn't be wasting it, would it?" Leigh spread her legs wide open, and gestured at her sopping cleft.

The other guys said, "Right on, Sarge! Do it!"

"Don't tempt me, Corporal," Donovan said with a scowl.

"See anything wrong with my logic?" Leigh said.

"No, I don't," the Sergeant said. "I think you're right." He went over to the girl, and began pumping in earnest, holding his cock so his cum would pump onto her wet cunt. His fist flew on his shaft, and with a grunt he shot on her. With careful aim, he didn't lose a single spurt to the floor. He sighed with relief, and walked away, his conscience clean.

When A squad came out, Corporal Mac reported they had all the supplies they had been sent for. Donovan nodded to the distraught father, and told his men to pick up the supplies and head back to base.

This was the way the Rats became famous for always getting the goods with their methods.

* * *

Robert was thoughtful as Tom King gave his report of the incident concerning his daughter, along with heartfelt letters describing dozens of similar events. The victims asked for the Dark man's help, because as bad as he was personally, the common folk of the Empire were better off than those suffering under the tyranny of General Stark's 'protection'.

"Thank you, Councilman," Robert said. "I think that you can expect an intervention in this matter, and soon. I can't give you specifics, but my actions will be decisive."

"As soon as you can, sir," Mr. King answered. "We're counting on you."

Operation: Ratcatcher was set for mid October, and with the careful planning that had led up to it, the day of the mission began flawlessly.

The six minor bases throughout the American North East were each to be attacked by two Legion Divisions. The greater numbers on the Empire's side were meant to overwhelm the resistance and get things under control as quickly as possible.

The main target, however, was Stark's base at NORAD HQ, inside Cheyenne Mountain, which would be the toughest nut to crack. Accordingly, this strike force consisted of three full Divisions of the best troops the Empire had, and the Power Team, accompanied by Wolf, a part time member, and led by the Emperor himself.

At 05:00 CST on the 15th, all seven bases were struck simultaneously. There was no way the enemy could support or even warn each other, as each was soon fully engaged. The Legion had more troops, but those that Stark had were more experienced, and better trained with the larger weapons of war, like tanks and artillery.

While the conventional forces squared off, Robert led Wolf and the Power Team past the battle line and through the long tunnel that ended at the massive doors that shut off the heavily shielded installation inside.[*]

The Dark man gave them their final instructions. "Wolf, you stay here with the Team, they'll need your help more than I will." The shaggy man nodded, and gave a nod to Teke, as well. He'd already worked it out with the Telekinetic who was in charge between them.

"Teke," Robert continued, "I'm going on ahead to open the way. The Team will stay here to hold the access to the Mountain. If the Legion wins decisively and reaches your position, go ahead and come in after me. If the tide turns against us, lend a hand and hit the enemy from the rear on your own judgment. Is that understood?"

"Yeah, Chief," the black man said. "Go in there and stick it to 'em. 'Hear?"

Robert nodded and turned to the great, reinforced doors. With a quick gesture, they ripped open, causing some small tremors on this part of the mountain. He flicked his long blue cloak, and disappeared inside the jagged rift. The sound of his mayhem as he headed back down the tunnel soon faded, but the rumbling tremors continued.

Charity, and the less combat oriented Team members stayed in the entrance tunnel to get as much cover as possible. Lady Web needed to stay as close to the outside as possible, though, for when she was needed. Her mind-linking gift only activated within line-of-sight range, at present. It was too short a range for Seeker to assist, and stay at home. They had needed her, though, and so she had come along.

A small shower of rocks alerted them that there was trouble in the area. Seeker said, "Look out!" as a bunker opened up on the mountain above them, and from it a dark tank emerged, blowing loose dirt around it in a windblast as it _floated_ out of the entrance.

The powerful fans on the smooth trackless bottom of the tank angled aftwards, and the armored vehicle began to slide down the slope towards them like a stick of butter on the off-ramp to Hell. Two armored men appeared at the bunker entrance, and they began leaping down to either side of the tank as if they only felt the Moon's gravity. Both the hover-tank and the power suits were dark colored, with bright green 51's painted on them.

"Lady Web!" Teke shouted, "link us up!" They blinked as the connecting Web surrounded their minds, and gave them instant communication with each other. Sapphire and Osprey, the two flyers in the group, started getting altitude, while Warp ducked down and checked his supply of packet bombs. Wolf stood his ground, with the great battleaxe Robert made for him held ready.

When the tank hit the bottom of the slope, the team had already moved. The tank slowed as it reached level ground, and it appeared to plant in one spot and swivel its main gun around in an attempt to cover the ground-based targets that were in the area.

Its movements were jerky and unsure, and Charity reported that the tank crew and the suited men lacked confidence in their equipment, and were nervous. Teke began to take advantage of the information, by giving hard randomly directed shoves against the big machine.

The crew tried to recover Turbine control and aim the guns despite the unexpected jolts. The armored men headed down to take their defensive positions by the tank, when Warp popped in and out around it, slapping on a dozen stick-on bombs, including a big one shoved inside the turret's main barrel.

"What are the fuses set for?" Teke yelled at Warp, as he threw up a PK shield against a spray of machine-gun fire.

"Ninety seconds, boss!" Tim called. I wanted it to be soon, but still give us time to get outta the way."

"Good thinking," the black man said. "Look, our flyers will handle the jumpin' beans coming down the hill. I gotta keep pushing this thing around, so they stay off balance. You and Wolf need to give them something to focus on. Are you two up to it? It's dangerous."

"I *like* danger," the wolfman grinned, lifting his axe.

"Like they even have a chance at targeting me!" the teen sneered confidently.

"Okay then," Teke said. "Keep 'em hopping boys!" Wolf and Warp led the tank away from the mountain, and away from the power suits racing to re-enforce it.

The tank's crew desperately tried to get a bead on *someone*, as they were thrust around inside their metal shell by a few tons of telekinetic force. From one side or the other, from above or below; they could never predict where the lurch was coming from next. All the while, timers counted down on the bombs stuck onto the tank's exterior.

Tim started counting down the last few seconds through the Web, "Five, four, three, two, one!"

BOOM! The tank was rocked again, and then suddenly it fell the two feet that it hovered above the ground, the main barrel bent and useless.

Teke waited, but the tank stayed silent. He levitated himself and Wolf to the hatch to greet the crew when they came crawling out.

The armored men had nearly made it to the tank when the flyers came back down. With a piercing whoop, Osprey stooped on one of them, ruddy phantom wings folded close. Her specialized telekinesis assisted her clawed gloves to clamp on the back of the suit. She fought to pull him up as high as she could before he could get a weapon aimed at her. Twenty feet, thirty, forty and climbing steadily, she continued to rise with her prey.

Sapphire had been charging his power beam the whole time that they'd climbed. When they had dived at the power suits, he had cut loose with as strong a blast as he'd ever fired, right at his target's chest. The bright blue shaft dazzled his eyes, and he skimmed by fast over the head of his target, wincing as he expected to hear the sound of gunfire, or worse.

When he spun to look behind him, all he saw was some drifting dust where the soldier had stood. He made a double loop in mid air to get a closer look, using the gradually fading blue sparkles that trailed after him to give himself some partial cover from any assault. The armored man had been driven a foot or two into the mountainside, smoking. The soldier twitched feebly, obviously stunned. Ali turned to assist his partner.

Osprey had her target half a football field up in the air, and was aiming for an especially rocky area. Sapphire showed off his speed and maneuverability by flying behind her, and occasionally looping in front of them to tease the guy into shooting at him.

"What are you going to do with him?" the Middle Easterner asked.

"I don't know, yet," Karen said. "He's not a turtle or a walnut, but do you think his shell will crack if I drop him?"

"Maybe," Ali said. "But you're only fifty yards up. You might want to try a hundred yards before you let him go. Or even a half a mile." He grinned at her, knowing their conversation was for the benefit of the prisoner.

"Oh God, don't," the man begged. "I surrender. I can't take a fall like that. Not in this untested, "New Technology" piece of shit...!"

"We accept your surrender," Osprey said, "but take off your helmet first."

"Why?" the soldier said, lifting his headgear.

"So it will be far more certain that you'll die, if I have to drop you because you cross us, you imperialist swine." The guy's hands froze. "Do it!" she snapped. He did.

"Say," Ali said, "wouldn't *we* be the Imperialists? After all..."

"Oh, shut up, Sapphire," Karen said, giving him a disgusted look as they flew downward.

* * *

Robert hadn't expected to face much pitched resistance to his penetration of the Mountain, but he was finding that people were hiding from him. It wasn't helping, of course, he could sense them through the walls, but he didn't really care. He wanted General Stark, and found him in the big Operations room, that resembled scenes in movies like War Games.

Just at the entrance were two close ranks of soldiers who were determined to kill the intruder, or die. Robert didn't like either of the choices, so he put them into a deep, coma-like sleep. The only time he'd killed anyone lately was when he was taken by surprise. Robert came fully into the room, and saw the General's iron-grey hair had gone completely white. The officers and soldiers manning the consoles looked nervous at his appearance.

"Hold it right there, you perverted freak," the General ordered him. Robert wanted to know what the man had to say, so he stayed where he was. The General laughed harshly, "Well, I've got you now, Black, and this is MY palace, so I call the shots. I'm going to take down your little empire, just as my men are taking out your pathetic 'Legions'.

Robert didn't bother to correct the General, but the facts were that the commander of Stark's forces outside had just capitulated, and the Power Team had the "Special Weapons" unit well in hand.

"See all those lights up there?" Stark asked him. "They represent multiple warhead nuclear missiles, waiting to be fired at my command. The majority of them are aimed at that so-called Palace of yours, but at least three are pointed at each of your Black Towers. With a press of this button, I will take out your precious "Empire", and make your home into a crater."

"Go ahead and press it," Robert said casually. The men in the room looked at him with surprise.

"And don't think your begging will stop me either, Black," the madman babbled, not hearing what Robert was really saying. "Even if you crawled and kissed my boots, I'd still do it. It's my duty as an American to wipe your obscenity off the map."

"I didn't know you had a shoe-fetish, General," Robert said. A few smothered snickers were heard in the room. He raised his voice, "I said, 'Go ahead and launch'. I don't care. Jenners told me about your plan months ago, and I've disabled your toys. They won't launch."

"You're lying! You couldn't! It isn't possible!" the General screamed. "I'll call your bluff right now!" His finger stabbed the flashing switch to launch the armed missiles, and then he turned to gloat at Robert.

Robert calmly watched the man's manic expression as the General described, in lurid detail, the devastation that was even now hurtling to obliterate Robert's cesspool of sin.

He was literally drooling when one of his officers tried to get his attention, "General... Sir... General!"

"What do you want!" Stark shrieked at him.

The Colonel flinched. "They didn't launch! We've got errors across the board. Not a single base has confirmed a launch. It's over."

"Why didn't they launch?" the General demanded shrilly, grabbing the Colonel's shirtfront.

"We don't know yet, sir," the Colonel said as the General shook him in rage. The younger man grabbed the General's wrists and held him still. We've got technical crews looking into it."

"We've got a report," someone yelled across the room.

"Put it on the speakers," the Colonel said, as he released the General, and pushed him away.

"The fuel tanks are full," a man said over the loud speaker. "So why the hell...?" he muttered. A clattering noise was heard. "Well, fuck me. I don't believe it. The engine housing is *empty*. There's no fucking motor in this thing. This missile isn't going anywhere... I don't have any spares."

"There's no warheads in the nose cones, either, General," Robert said. "Your man is right. It's over."

"Never!" the General shouted, spittle flying. He drew his pistol, and started firing at the Dark man. Robert thoughtfully kept the bullets from ricocheting. The General put another clip in his gun, and kept firing, but Robert just stood there. "You're a dead man," the General laughed. "I killed you. I saved the Nation!" He swaggered over to where his imagination showed him Robert's bleeding corpse.

"And you are mad," Robert said. "And you will always be a threat to those around you. It ends now." With a sudden move, he shoved the blunt head of the black Rod into the General's gut, and made the darkness flare. When the room's light tentatively crept back to the vicinity of the Emperor, he stood alone, except for a pile of ash and char at his feet.

"You are all my prisoners," he said to the men in the room. "And will be tried for whatever crimes and atrocities you may have committed." He turned to the Imperial forces that were entering the room. "Welcome to Cheyenne Mountain!" he said.

...

Later, the Operations room was empty, save for Robert. He was playing with the displays, and fiddled until he got a screen that pleased him. "It's time for another step outward," he mused.

The display highlighted the American Northern States above the Mason-Dixon line, plus Missouri, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rockies, that were now under his control. Nearly half the Nation, or 24 States were soon to be in his Empire, in addition to the six Canadian Provinces bordering those states.

Yes, that would be fine. It was time to consolidate for now. After awhile, when he was comfortable again, it would be time to plan and grow once more.

 

[*]Mind you, this was written after “War Games”, but well before “Star Gate” or I’d probably have referenced something about the second movie, and the TV series (plural) that followed.

[Version: C - 1/2015.]


	12. "Braving The Fimbulwinter."

_THE IMPERIAL CHRONICLES: THE JOURNAL OF CAPTAIN DANIEL JENNERS._

_"The Black Towers stood by the Capitols of twenty plus States and six Canadian Provinces after the Battle for Cheyenne Mountain [*]. Legion HQ had been moved to the mountain with Robert's permission. The facilities there were better than anything the Empire had time to build, yet._

_"The Minister of Science Liz Tyler, and her partner Mariko Michaelson had some interesting technology to examine afterwards. From examining The Hover Tank, the battle suits, and other items in the mountain Mariko theorized that 'Area 51' was a myth of the Government. Instead of aliens, the base stored 'dangerous to the status quo' inventions like the one she and Liz created. The Emperor refused to be budged by their urging to secure the facility ASAP. He would get to it when he was ready._

_"The Power Team helped Robert comb through the enemy officers and noncoms. The ones accused of committing atrocities against civilians were tried by a Legion tribunal. Those convicted were subject to swift and harsh punishments. The remaining soldiers received a briefing on the new laws. Those who still wanted to serve were allowed to join the Legion. Everyone else was allowed to return home._

_"One group they didn't catch up with was Sgt. Donovan's Rat Platoon. True to form, that disreputable group had deserted the sinking ship of Stark's ambitions when the Legion moved in. The Dark man promised Councilman King that the Rats would be apprehended and tried as soon as they were located._

_"As a reward for the valuable intelligence I had given the Empire, I had been given a field commission in the Legion to the rank of Lieutenant. They told me that I earned that commission all over again with heroic actions during the Battle. When Mr. Black told me that he was promoting me to Captain, I was surprised. 'You know I'm gay, don't you sir?'_

_"He blinked in surprise. 'No, I didn't,' he said. 'But why the hell should it matter, anyway?' I told him that it usually did. He just shook his head and said, 'Well, it doesn't in my Army'_

_"Before I could catch myseslf, I found myself asking, 'I suppose you're hopelessly straight, sir.' I couldn't believe I had actually said that._

_"He only smiled at me. 'Sorry, Jenners, but I am *extremely* straight.'_

_"I breathed a sigh of relief as he walked away. You couldn't win them all. I was just glad he didn't get angry about it."[**]_

* * *

By the end of October, the Empire's growth caused the center of distribution to move away from the Palace. Because armed raiders were still a concern in the fledgling Empire, Robert only gave supplies to the most strongly built and defended of the outlaying storage depots. He called these depots 'Keeps', and their managers 'Lords' as a joke at first, but the names stuck. The Lords arrogantly ranked each other with the ancient titles. Their 'fealty' to Robert, though, was nonexistent.

The Lords had small armies of personnel, and drivers who made shipping runs for them. But just as in pre-Imperial times, there were drivers who preferred to be independent. Even those drivers with their own rigs couldn't get work in the new system.[***]

Each Lord controlled the shipments from their depot, assigning their own men only to the runs they decided needed to be made. To keep their investments in equipment and drivers safe, they stuck solely to the 'civilized' regions under Legion patrol. For critical needs, Legion transport troops made the trips. For missions less important, Robert offered premiums for shipments to hard-pressed areas needing help. He hired independent drivers to make these runs, but when they couldn't get refueled at the Keeps, the mercy missions stalled.

A little bit of power went a long way, it seemed. Robert needed to check the Lords so-called authority, soon. If the commerce system wasn't made self regulating, he'd remain burdened with it. He had too much on his mind to want to be bothered by petty problems like this forever. Robert realized that his first solution, once again, was more harmful to his long term aimsthan anything else. The Keeps had been such a first solution, and now they were causing even more trouble than they were worth. He and his Council came up with a plan in keeping with his long-term goals. A plan that was soon put into place…

* * *

The last of the battered freelance truckers to show up pulled into the landscaped circle in front of the Dark Palace. It didn't look like many independents were willing to take Robert up on his offer. It seemed like too good a deal to be true. He offered them professional protections, but there were only a few willing to hear him out.

 _I don't have much to work with_ , Robert thought, _but I'll make do_. Getting their attention, he addressed the drivers, and began his pitch. "Gentlemen," he said, "and lady," nodding to the sole female present, "thanks for coming. I need the Empire self-sufficient, without having to constantly support it. For that to happen, I need regular shipping. The Lords don't like their men driving the less patrolled roads, nor the risks of creating new routes. Therefore, I'm looking for freelancers who are willing to take those risks."

"What kind of risks?" said the youngest driver. "We put our balls to the wall for some crumbs, just to have their pet drivers steal our routes? Screw that!"

"Shut up, kid," said a grizzled old driver. "I'm here because we can't compete with them, and we've tried. With their newer rigs, the free fueling and the road service, they just kill us on the roads. Heck, I hauled my own gasoline to hear this."

"All that stops now," Robert said. "Collectively, you are stronger than you are separately. If you join forces, I can apply pressure on your behalf. I'm not suggesting a Union, but something more like a Knightly Order, responsible only to me. They will respect that Order, or I will tear down their walls and use local governments to administer the depots, instead. So tell me, what do you need to get started?"

"Weapons," the last arrival said. He was a tall young man in a denim jacket, "And armored rigs." There was a grim expression in his hazel eyes. "My name's Gary Miller. My dad died in the Collapse Riots just before the end. I watched on the news as he made a run of Red Cross supplies into Atlanta. He wouldn't leave the cab, but the mob broke in to get the trailer keys." His voice choked with emotion. "Those supplies were going to be given to them anyway. They didn't have to kill him."

The other truckers looked at him, with sympathy. "You Harry's kid?" said the woman. "Yeah, you got his hair. He was a good driver, and a great guy."

"Yeah," Gary answered, "that he was. Sir, it was a new truck, and when the load was stripped, they burned it. All I got from my dad was this old rig, and I can't afford to lose it. So I want protection. There are still plenty of guys on the road willing to kill us to get our loads."

Robert distantly recalled watching the riots on TV while he was still a child. It seemed like ages past to him, but for the rest of the world it was only months ago. "I understand your position, Mr. Miller, and I already had that in mind. Your rigs will be armed and upgraded. You'll have new trailers if you need them; new engines, and access to some really cool technology. Sound good so far?"

"Sounds great," the woman said. "But how 'bout snowplows?"

"A what?" Robert said. "And I didn't catch your name..?"

"'Candy' Kane is what they call me, sugar," she said. "The last few years the snows have been very heavy. The lesser roads aren't being plowed, so if you want us to get around on 'em, we'll have to carry plows with us."

"Good thinking, Candy," Robert said. "I'm sure we can manage it. Those who sign on now will get the whole package. You don't have to join, but I can't think of any downside to the deal. My technicians will show you what we have to offer over here..."

* * *

Nearly a week later, Gary Miller, duly elected Captain of The Knights of the Open Road Society, grumbled to himself as he pulled out from the Palace. He'd sure as hell hadn't thought they'd stick him with being in charge, but they had.

Maybe there were some good sides to it though, because his new rig was really sweet. They'd rebuilt the truck from wheels to roof. For an engine he had a cold fusion plant, and some sort of black boxes bolted on the frame to lighten the truck's mass by over half. The body and wheels were made of advanced materials that wouldn't rust or wear. He especially liked the new cab, which had all the amenities of a small mobile home.

Personally, Gary doubted the big 'cowcatcher' on the front grill would be very useful plowing snow, but offensively it had some promise. The whole rig was both bullet and flame proof, and there were searchlights that could be aimed in all directions. The auto-guns could be manually or computer controlled via a sophisticated video surveillance system. It felt like he was driving a tank with cargo space.

As soon as the work was finished, he'd taken on a high risk assignment to a tiny town in the high Rockies. Legion Scouts had spotted survivors, and they needed help. The main load was emergency supplies for the townsfolk, but he had a small cargo of other goodies of his own that he carried separately for bartering. Being able to blow past Keep fueling stations was a pleasure he relished at the start of the run.

Despite his misgivings, the plow came in handy after he skirted North of Denver, and headed higher into the mountains. He'd thought the term 'survivors' in the briefing had been an exaggeration of the situation, but he found he was wrong. Between the Collapse, the harsh winter, and raiders, he found entire towns that were devoid of signs of life.

His GPS readings told him he'd reached Eagle, Colorado, when he pulled up to a ramshackle barricade blocking the road into town. He turned on his floodlights in the hazy dusk, and caught sight of men with weapons ducking down behind the flimsy protection of the wall. Lifting his mike, he turned on the loudspeaker, "Hey, on the walls," he said, "I need to talk to somebody in charge in there. My name's Gary Miller, and I have a load of relief supplies for you, paid for by the Government."

One of the huddled shapes on the wall brought up what looked like a cheerleader's megaphone, "What government?" the man shouted. "And how do we know you don't carry raiders in there?"

"The Empire, is what," Gary said. "And mister, if you want to check my load, you can come down here and do it."

A few minutes later the man slipped through a small gap in the wall that Gary hadn't noticed before, and gestured for the trucker to leave his cab with an ugly looking pistol. Gary made sure his helmet and kevlar duster were on firmly, before he slipped to the ground.

"Look dude," he said, just now noticing the man had a sheriff's badge on his tattered parka. "Did you see that trucker who was killed in the Atlanta riots?" The guy nodded as he looked over the trucker with a practiced eye, and then patted him down. "That was my dad, so I'm probably just as scared of you, as you are of me."

"I doubt that," the man said. "Let's see in the back."

Gary shrugged and walked to the back, followed by the jittery townsman. He unlocked the doors and pushed them open. A soft curse behind him made him turn around. The shocked young sheriff had dropped his gun in the snow. He was staring hungrily at the crates of foodstuffs, clothing, and medical supplies stacked high in the back.

The Sheriff gave the trucker a sudden, gruff hug, and then ran around the truck to yell at them to open up the wall, quickly. Gary smiled, and picked up the man's service pistol. Brushing off the snow, he laid the empty gun in the back, and then dogged the doors shut.

He climbed back into his cab, and as soon as the way was clear, the Sheriff climbed up on his running board and guided him to Town Hall. As each crate was unloaded, Gary checked it off his list, and had the Sheriff verify each one. When it was all off the truck, both he and the officer signed his papers, stating that everything had been delivered.

Part of Gary's job was to explain the advanced new equipment, and help pick a suitable spot for the cold fusion generator. The Town Hall's basement proved adequate for that, and before long men were stringing cables to nearby houses, giving them electrical power for the first time in months. The Communication unit went to the Sheriff's Office. It accessed the new satellite system, restoring radio, and some phone, and video service to the town. The Sheriff's Office also served as the armory for the Army surplus weapons and ammunition that were part of the load.

While this being done, the entire community gathered. A spontaneous celebration of thanksgiving was breaking out, and tables were laden with both long hoarded preserves and newly arrived supplies. "You must join us tonight," Sheriff Keith Thomas said, raising a glass to him. "Because of you, the citizens of Eagle will survive."

"I was just doing my job, Keith," Gary protested, "you know that. I hate it when people make a fuss over me. These are your supplies, and I've got plenty for myself in the truck."

Thomas shrugged with a smile. "They'll lynch me if I let you leave here before they've had the chance to thank you."

"Oh, hell," Gary said. "At least let me give you something for it. I brought some extra trading goods of mine so I could barter with you folks. I'm already going to be paid well for this run, and you folks need this stuff more than I do..."

"Nonsense!" the Sheriff interrupted. "Emergency aid is one thing, but this is your property. We can't take it as charity. Gary, with no entertainment around here, we've been keeping ourselves busy just to keep from getting bored. Emma, you have any of those nice sweaters you've been knitting? Tony, where are those wooden animals you've been carving? Let's give the man fair value!"

Doug McCoy, Eagle's Mayor was a retired advertising guru, and on his advice, the townsfolk had branded everything with an Eagle somewhere on it, to show where it was made. The handmade items would sell like crazy in the cities that were getting by on basic Imperial supplies. He briskly traded his boxes of goodies, including recent reading material, toys, and luxuries, for the goods the town's people had made. He also agreed to take their long delayed mail to Denver.

By the time they finished trading, dinner was ready. After they sat down, the Mayor led them in a heartfelt prayer. While they ate Gary told them about what the country had been going through. He explained the rise of the Empire and about Robert Black. The Battle of Cheyenne had been practically in their backyard, but they had heard nothing about it. When he finished, dinner was nearly over, and conversations broke out as the townsfolk discussed his news. Gary found himself in a conversation with the Sheriff. "Aren't you sort of young to be the top cop around here?" Gary asked.

"I'm 28," Thomas said. "But, yeah, I was just the Deputy until a month ago. The old Sheriff was killed in a firefight with bandits while we were building the wall. I was elected to take his place, and I take that real seriously."

"I can see that," Gary said with a laugh. "You sure looked serious to me outside the wall. I would have never guessed you didn't have any bullets."

"Sorry about that," Thomas said. "You can never be too careful. For example, we couldn't afford to waste the few bullets we had left, so the gun was just a bluff in case you weren't what you claimed to be."

Later that night, in his cab, Gary kept warm with the help of a pretty and willing girl from town. He was a little afraid that in the morning her relatives would be upset, but there seemed to be no sign of it as he prepared to head back down the mountain.

The last sight he saw of the town in his rear cameras was the Imperial flag being raised on the flagpole that formed part of the barricade [****]. Philosophers had already tried to create metaphors for the Empire based on Robert's flag. It reminded Gary of Rorschach tests. What you saw said more about you, than about anything in the image.

...

He tried a different route through one of the ghost towns he'd driven through before. It was very late that night when he had to slow to a stop. There was a naked, frozen body of a woman sprawled in the thick snow. She lay in the street's only clear lane between the abandoned cars. If he drove through, he'd be forced to run over her. When he considered getting out to move her, his neck hairs prickled.

His spotlights showed fresh footprints that proved the scene was staged for his benefit. He was already in the trap, he realized, as he tried to back up. The road was ice-coated, and there wasn't enough room to maneuver out of it. He ducked into the back of the cab and put on his protective clothes, then studied the situation in detail. He could only see one way out that he was willing to take.

Gary targeted the car that choked off the traffic lane with his heaviest weapons. When the two mortars and a rocket had blown it up, he engaged the short-term vertical lift and flew over the burning wreckage with minimal damage.

The men lying in wait for him opened fire on his rig as he landed. He could hear the pings of the ricochets off the sides, and winced as a bullet bounced off his windshield without leaving a mark. Gary floored it once past the body, and barreled through the rest of the obstacles on the street. He turned down several side roads, using the GPS unit and his road tracker to keep him headed out of town.

At the edge of town, his movement sensors showed him that targets were approaching from behind. He wasn't too concerned, because he would soon leave them far behind. As he turned onto the highway, he saw a yellow glow moving through the roadside trees ahead of him. Magnifying the image, he saw an unarmed woman in light clothing waving at him from the tree line. Switching off his monitor, he could still see her shine as she struggled through the drifts. She looked afraid to leave the cover of the woods.

Gary turned on the machine guns, and set them to rake the road behind him. Hoping that would keep the raiders at a distance for a while, he slid to the right side of the cab. He opened the passenger side door and shouted at the woman to come on and get in. She started to fight her way to the truck, but fell just as semiautomatic gunfire walked across the snowy shoulder of the road. A fine spray of red across the white snow made him curse.

The trucker grabbed his own guns, special high caliber weapons, with recoil suppression and extra-large clips. He kicked the door all the way open, and rolled out with them, firing steadily to cover his way to the woman. She was still glowing, making a hell of a target in the dark.

He got between the bandits and the woman. After holstering one gun, Gary pulled her urgently back to the rig. He felt bullets slam him hard in the back of his armored duster, but he grimly kept going. He got to the cab, and hefted the woman in. The gunfire increased in a last effort to stop them.

Angrily, he turned and faced the shooters squarely and cut loose until his clips emptied. As he stepped up to the running board to climb inside, he felt like someone stabbed him in the thigh. His raised leg wouldn't hold his weight, much less lift him into the cab, so quickly he changed supporting legs, and with the woman's help, he dragged himself in.

He panted as he crawled over her to the driver's side, telling her to close the door as soon as he was clear. He felt the door jar his boots as he got them in, and he cursed again. Righting himself, he shut off the auto-guns, let off the brake and mashed the gas, yelping in pain. His right leg was bleeding heavily, and he couldn't really use it to get them out of here.

"Aw, God dammit!" Gary muttered. He snatched a quick look at the girl. She was a blonde. Well, no one was perfect. He hoped he wasn't going to need to brake, as he shifted his position to use his left leg on the gas pedal. That made him feel a bit 'off' but it didn't hurt as much. "We gotta get some distance between us and them," he snarled. "After that, we can both get patched up. Serves me right for playing fuckin' Rambo."

"I thought you were heroic," the woman said in a soft, soothing voice beside him.

"Name's Gary Miller," he said, wiping cold sweat from his eyes. "It was just something I had to do." He pointed as his K.O.R.S. license swinging from the review mirror. A dirt stained, but delicate hand reached out to steady the card as his passenger examined it.

"'Knights of the Open Road Society,'" she said with a smile he heard in her voice. "I see. My name is Sondra Eriks."

"You hurt bad?" he asked as he checked the GPS. They were still too close to stop, and his vision was starting to swim.

"I was just grazed," she said, "and it's closed already. I think your bullet is still in you." With his peripheral vision, he could see a faint yellow light flicker beside him, and he heard her sigh in concern.

"Don't have time to stop yet," he said, fighting the urge to look where the light came from. "That town is still too close for comfort."

"They kept me captive for weeks," she said. "They don't have any way of getting through heavy snow like this truck can. That's why they wanted to capture it."

"When I get back to Denver the Legion will hear about that place," Gary growled, "and they'll get what's coming to them." As snow started to fall from the black skies, he pointed to the back, and told her where the first aid kit was. She gave him some aspirin, and pressed a bandage to his wound to staunch the bleeding. He drove at full speed for another hour, until they were on the east side of the mountain pass. Gary tried to ignore the wet smell of blood that lingered in the cab.

Finally, he pulled over by a copse of trees. The snow was falling heavily enough that he would need to use his instruments to continue. He was sure that it would to cover their tracks from any followers. "We're stopping here," he said. "Can you do anything about that bullet?"

"Yes," Sondra said, "I'm a Healer. You need to lie down, and you have what I need in your kit." With her help he got back and lay down on his bed, moaning because of his bullet bruised back. Carefully, she used scissors to cut off his jeans rather than disturb his wound any more than necessary. She cleaned her hands and instruments, and got ready to work on him.

"Hang on," she said, and then quickly pulled off the remaining patch of denim from his wound. He cursed as she used water, then antiseptics to clean the wound. "This is going to feel strange," she said, "but it works." She put her bare hands on either side of the wound. They started to glow with a soft golden light, and the glow soon covered her whole body. The pain eased suddenly, like he'd been given a painkiller. The glow tingled in his bones as she closed her eyes, and pressed down on his leg.

She was right. Something felt very strange. Gary felt his leg muscles crawling as if by their own will. She picked up a pair of tweezers and reached into the hole with it. She twisted it in, and he felt a painless jolt. He watched as she pulled the bullet out, and then went in again to pull out threads from his jeans.

"That's it," she said. "The bullet didn't fragment, and it missed any major veins and arteries. Now I can heal you." She laid her hands on him again. The glow became more intense, and he could see the swelling reduce, the angry red color fade, and the bullet hole seal shut.

She cleaned his leg again, and taped on a pad of gauze bandages. "The skin is still thin," she said. "The bandage is a precaution, if you don't push yourself, it should stay sealed." She rubbed her eyes, and fought a yawn. "I'm too tired to continue now, but I will finish the healing when I've rested." Picking up Gary's blanket, she covered him and stroked his temple. "You need your sleep, too," she said, her glow betraying her purpose. He tried to resist her power, but couldn't. He quickly fell asleep.

Sometime later, he awoke. It was quiet in the cab. Gary fumbled on his reading light, and saw Sondra asleep on the floor, using some of his extra bedding. As he sat up, he groaned from the pain of his leg. Her green eyes opened instantly at the sound and met his.

"Take it easy, Gary," she said, as she came and sat beside him. She threw his blanket back and quickly stripped off the bandage. Before he could complain, she touched his leg and eased the stinging. The skin covering the injury was smooth and pink, but as she erupted in golden light, the deep muscle ache faded. When she lifted her hands again, only the color of the new skin showed he had even been shot at all.

"There," she said, "I've finished the job. Why don't you freshen up, and I'll fix us something to eat." He nodded.

He used the facilities and showered as she started breakfast. When he was done, he gave up the shower to her, while he took over the cooking. She cleaned up fast he noticed, as she came out toweling her hair and wearing one of his tee shirts. It clung tight to her curves, and hung down to her upper thighs. "Nice," he said, looking at her chest. "You look better in that than I do."

"Thanks," she said. "Is breakfast ready?"

After they ate, she asked when they would be moving out. "When it stops snowing, probably," he said. He climbed up front and used the communications gear to get a weather report and forecast. "Looks like the storm's clearing up tomorrow, so we'll just stay put until then."

"What are we going to do in the meantime?" she said, with a coy smile.

"I'm sure we can think of something," he said, going back to his bunk, and reaching for her to join him. She accepted his invitation, and sat beside him, pulling his head down for a deep kiss. There was just a hint of her glow to her mouth that gave her lips an exotic taste.

Desire swept through him, and he eagerly reached for the hem of her tee shirt. Sliding it up, the first thing he noticed was that she wasn't wearing any panties. He already knew she wasn't wearing a bra. Her skin was silky and warm, and everywhere he touched it, tingles flowed from her to him. Finding that she was a natural blonde wasn't surprising at all; being golden was just part of what she was.

He couldn't wait anymore. He stripped himself nude while she smiled at him, the shirt still bunched above her hips. He kneeled at her feet and began to kiss her wherever she was bare. Her thighs and belly felt his lips and tongue. When he began to push the shirt higher, his mouth passionately followed.

His kisses traveled to the undersides of her rounded breasts, and in between, then on to suckle on her pale nipples. She pulled off the shirt, tossing her hair back, and he stared at her perfection with awe. Rigid with need, he started to push her backwards, but she shook her head.

"Don't worry, lover," she said. "We have plenty of time. I'll make sure that it lasts long enough to satisfy both of us." She reached for his erection. In her hand, it softened a little, as she eased the fierce pressure while causing mini-orgasm-like pulses in it. The feelings were incredible, and he knew that he'd willingly let her do that to him forever.

They lay down side by side and explored each other, with their hands and their mouths. He still felt his desire, but she helped him control it as their bodies entwined, until she urged him to enter her. His cock felt harder than he could ever remember as he pushed into her wetness. He was afraid he would cum too soon, but her power surrounded him like a benediction. She kept him from overloading into the gulf of orgasm until she was ready for him. Her glow kept him at the peak or near to it, for what felt like hours.

Her gift must have been the reason he didn't strain his back or legs, as he endlessly moved with her. He didn't have to ask if she had cum, and he quickly lost count of her orgasms. If she weren't giving him pleasure far greater than anything he'd ever felt or imagined in his life, he might almost have resented her use of his flesh... _Almost_.

He gasped as he felt the first hints that she was letting him reach completion. Renewed, he pounded even harder, encouraged by her screams that he hurry. Somewhere in the savage thrusts, he started to cum. He kept up the pace as he surged more than he had ever before. Panting, he withdrew and collapsed beside her. He pulled her against his shoulder as she finished shuddering.

Tired from their pleasures, they dozed together for a while. It wasn't long before reality intruded on them. Trips to the bathroom and something to snack on took momentary precedence. It wasn't even lunch yet before her sly smile and trailing finger down his side let him know that she definitely wasn't done for the day. He didn't know whether to cheer or groan.

Gary once read a graphic novel with Healers in it. The main character confided in his blood brother what it was like to be with the dark-skinned healer when she used her powers to 'enhance' her paramour's performance. Shocked, his friend asked if she did THAT every time. He laughed and said no, because if she did he'd be unable to walk, let alone be good for anything else [*****]. The trucker now thought he had a good idea of what 'that' was.

He hoped it would be a very long trip back to Iowa, but even more fervently, he hoped that Sondra wouldn't do THAT every time.

 

To be Continued...

[*] The American States: CO, CT, DE, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, ME, MD, MA, MI, MN, MO, MT, NE, NH, NJ, NY, ND, OH, PA, RI, SD, VT, VA, WV, WI, and WY. The Canadian Provinces: Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.]

[**]Obviously, 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' was in effect when this was written a couple of decades ago.

[***] If I recall correctly, I think this chapter was partly inspired by an episode of “Knight Rider”, about a group of independent truckers trying to get runs in Company-controlled territory. The muse finds inspiration in strange places at times. The fusion tech introduced earlier (USAN#8), and the grav tech from last episode also come into play here.

[****] Black, with a large, flattened oval of royal blue in the center, superimposed with deeply scalloped, golden four pointed star. The points overlapping the oval at the top, bottom, left and right to extend slightly into the black, the top and bottom extending more than the sides.]

[*****] Elfquest: Kings of the Broken Wheel #4, Copyright WaRP Graphics. At least, that’s what I assumed Cutter was talking about.]

Lastly, **"Fimbulwinter"** is the immediate prelude to the events of _Ragnarok_ , the Norse end of times. It simply means '' _Mighty Winter"_.

[Version: Revision C - 1/2015.]


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